"I sense that this one's Almost-ish done, though I cannot definitely say."

It's almost Christmas this morning, two weeks away from 'Eve and I haven't really started thinking about it yet. I could say that I'm almost ready to start thinking about it because Almost-ish describes the highest state of readiness I ever achieve. I can't remember ever feeling ready for anything. None of my greatest life changes were in any way preceded by adequate preparation. I led each with my left foot, departing at least a day later than planned, yet still arrived within at least one standard deviation of On Time. I subscribe to the defining tenet that there's never any adequate replacement for a sincere lack of preparation. Almost-ish represents as close as I ever get to being ready for anything.

My status quos feature elongated tails. I despise letting go. I understand that time must simply march forward, but I always seem to be conspiring to let it march on without me. I feel fine with where I am, in spite of or maybe even because of this time's shortcomings. I don't want different and I do not want new. I want just what I will later proclaim that I knew so very, very well. It never seems precisely the proper time to purse a fresh perspective. Fresh perspectives seem to find me just fine without my starting any concerted search for them. Nobody ever properly prepares for their world view to shift. Those shifts hit the proverbial fan, preparation rarely advised.

Christmas comes on the same damned day every blessed year, though it always seems to creep up on me, finding me perennially, sublimely unprepared. Boo! This holiday scares the pants off me every time. Santa seems more boogey man than Coke®-drinking jolly old elf. He's not aged a day in my lifetime. He still looks about seventy-five. While seasons fled like so many falling leaves, he apparently really didn't have anything to dread. Christmases have come and Christmases have gone, leaving a few fuzzy memories like tufts of yarn snagged on a prickly holly tree. The Christmases I've already experienced seem plenty and enough for me, given that each additional one seems destined to take up permanent residency in the fuzziest of sticky memories. I'm no more than almost ready for an additional seasonal experience. I'll feel no readier on December twenty-sixth.

A certain almost impostor sense accompanies my Almost-ish ways. I'm never quite exactly who or what I say, though almost, in a way. The average seems lost on me, Mr. Far-Beyond The Mean. I once aspired to become someone, and I Almost thought I'd succeed. But a bright and shiny other chanced to catch my eye, and pursuing that and all the many others, my someone just slipped by. I thought to decide before I began just where this story might lead, but it was garbage day so I made my rounds before tidying up this piece. It ended up ending just where it did as I'd forgotten what I'd intended to say. I sense that this one's Almost-ish done, though I cannot definitely say.

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #GlancingKnow, #PureSchmaltz