The Visit of the Big Failure

Some days, you get time.

Time to sit and think.

And where that time is idle time and the stuff you sit and think about is trivial, well, other things get thought about.

Skeletons. We all have them, real and metaphorical. I think a lot about them in fall and spring, when the time seems to slow down and there’s lots to think about, or at least lots of time for thinking.

Every year it seems, I have what I call the Big Failure. They seem to come in the fall for some reason, disturbing my sleep as they days get shorter and as Orion rises in the sky. Maybe it’s Orion’s fault. But most likely mine, and my tendency to be paranoid and overanalyze things.

I get to thinking about taking time off. I took a Thursday off a few weeks ago – not connected to this year’s Big Failure. I have time to take more. But then I’m underfoot at home and it doesn’t really help matters, so I may as well not do it.

I am being purposely vague; this is a public place, after all. I’ll know enough that reading this, five years down the line, ten years down the line, I’ll still remember what the Big Failure this time was. Unless, of course, I’m dealing with yet another more modern Big Failure, which is always possible.

Also, because this too shall pass.  It’s not career-ending or anything like that. Time heals all Big Failures. Though you think time would also be a contributing factor into reducing the frequency of Big Failures which, perhaps, it has.

Still.

Part of me wonders if it isn’t biological. I think most family members face the Big Failure to varying degrees. We all have our own little dancing skeletons.



UPDATE: This year’s Big Failure seems to have gone out with a whimper and not a bang as expected. Or else it’s just waiting in the wings for the right time to explode. Maybe it’s time I got out my reorg boots.