There is always a breaking point. A place you get to where you just want to say fuck everything and leave it at that: your job, your apartment, all the other bullshit. You walk around like your fists are clenched and you resist punching walls. Restraint. It takes restraint to no let loose on anyone within a certain perimeter.

That's where I was 2 weeks ago. I just felt done and standing a hair's breadth away from snapping. I was walking around pissed off; tired of dating, of stressing, of working so hard, of all of it.

Today I can hardly believe I have to go back to work tomorrow. I've been off for 11 days; away from work and away from any schedule. I slept in and stayed up late. I talked to friends and strolled around my neighborhood. I started a book.

Fucking hell writing a book is hard. Much harder than I thought it would be. I spent the first 7 days of my holiday writing, furiously, for hours on end. At the start of every day I would read over what I had accomplished the night before and would start completely retooling. It seemed to me that as I slept things that I had spent so much time carefully putting into each exact place would come unhinged. I couldn't figure out what force, what little devil troll would sneak in and tweak my story, but things were already unraveling as I sat down each morning.

So I would spent the first half of my day editing, putting back together that which had come undone. It was frustrating work, but the hours have rarely gone faster for me. I would look up and 3 hours had clicked off. I would find myself hungry and couldn't figure out why; it seemed I had just had breakfast. Until I looked at the clock.

The second half of the day would be spent on new material.

At the end of the 7 days I stand where I do now with the book: 23 pages done, with 8 pages of thoughts and notes going forward. It was an odd time; isolating and tiring and somewhat claustrophobic. And I had a blast.

I just walked in the door after spending 4 days at a beach house with friends for the New Year. I feel more relaxed now than I have in a long time. We woke up, cooked breakfast, read the paper, played cards, drank, cooked lavish spreads and just relaxed. It was, I think, a look ahead at the way things are changing for all of us as we round these last 2 years of our 20s. There will not be many club nights left, if there are any at all. The DJs won't be spinning our feet into the morning hours. It seems we all want something a little quieter, a little more intimate. The bigger times will be made in smaller groups. If we're still up with the Sun, it will be because we chose it amongst us in whosever place we seem to be at, not because the doors don't close till early. There were conversations and long walks. I'm not quite signing our AARP forms yet, we're not old, it just seems we don't need the location anymore; we'd rather have the company.

I am one of the last remaining singles amidst my group of friends. They are all married. Most thinking trying to plan their first kid. Some might even admit to having a name or two picked out.

Of course there are the Bridget Jones moments, moments I would just rather avoid but which my friends seem to want to take from Technicolor to our lives. They want to know when I'm going be bringing someone to these weekends.

I don't know the answers to that. There is an odd impatience from them, but no one ever said you were supposed to end up with someone. And if I'm going to, it's going to be because I cannot resist her pull, not so I can join my friends.

But one day I'll just know because you see a face like that only a few times in your life. If you don't chase it, you're doomed. Doomed to look at yourself in a mirror late at night and wonder what she would have been like if I'd just introduced myself? Maybe she would have smiled and come for coffee. Maybe she was as amazing as she looked. Maybe she was cool. Maybe she will be the lay of a lifetime. Maybe everything would change that moment and I'd soon be a hundred miles away from here, someplace so much better I can't even imagine. Maybe that will be this year.

We are heading in to different days. These following years will be something to experience. I cannot wait.

***

I'm going to pare back to 2, perhaps 3, posts a week. I'm going to try and keep this novel going; wanting the momentum to continue. I hope you understand. I hope you'll stay with me.

Happy New Year, everyone.