Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

Reporting in for the New Year…

I am sitting at my writing desk, pen in hand but I am looking out of the window. Or trying to.

It is still dark outside, the faint outline of the houses opposite beginning to show in silhouette against the slowly changing tones of the dawn sky.

The window in front of me is a dark mirror. The ghostly image I see reflected in the glass is of an old woman, care worn and tired, looking back at me.

What is she doing?

She is not writing, not yet but I can tell that she will.

Emotions twist and turn as I consider myself and what the past, slowly receding nightmare of a year has reduced me to.

A year that has thrown everything it could lay its hands on at all of us, leaving bitter flotsam in its wake.

I intended to start the new year with a good deal of positivity, to try and rebuild the dreams that took such a battering in 2020.

Finding most of them wasn’t easy, as they didn’t want to be found. That was when I realised that rebuilding them wouldn’t be easy either.

I can sympathise, for I am bruised and battered too.

The trouble for most of us, is that all the bad stuff didn’t magically vanish on the stroke of midnight. Some may never go away completely.

So what will happen in 2021?

All I know is this – we may be battered and a bit ragged around the edges, but we are not beaten, not by a long shot.

We will simply do our absolute best, like always…

© Jaye Marie 2021