The last couple of weeks…they’ve been a lot.

We wrapped the “longest in history” business, with some mixed feelings. We’re back, we’ve been back paid, and life continues. Of course, being what time of year it is, the fact that it’s only a continuing resolution means there’s no money on the books yet, and starting this week, there’s going to be so much use-or-lose leave being burned (including by me) that there wouldn’t be anyone around to spend it anyway. Some of last year’s projects are becoming problems again, but at least they’re not becoming my problem.

But at least it’s kind of normal (or was for a couple of weeks) until we end up doing this all over again at the end of January, which looks more likely all the time. Given the seven weeks of no pay, finances are kind of upside down even if the balance sheet is still in the positive, so we’d already decided the holidays were going to be a non-event anyway. Better to batten down and keep the emergency fund for the next emergency.

Nobody feels much like celebrating anyway; this year has been, by far, the worst on record of my fifty-one years on this planet, and piling on some personal setbacks in the past week that I’m still coming to terms with, it’s not getting any better as we hit the home stretch.

I’m making the executive decision to frankly just sit this one out. Ride these next couple of weeks out, button up for the year, and just hermit for a couple of weeks in December, unplug, work on a couple of low-key personal projects and soul-search a bit.

Maybe I can come up with some way to more effectively cope with the coming year which isn’t likely to improve.