Unguarded Moment

 The toll of daily life can at times bring me down. I work to pay the bills and then work some more and pay some more. I shouldn't complain. I could pay the bills alright. And my job is not that bad. I have enough to spend on small luxuries and indulge my undemanding son with some extras.

Maybe it is the solitary life I lead. Yeah, I can do the things I like to do. I can socialize whenever I want to, I can travel wherever and whenever without taking into account somebody else's schedule. It's a dream scenario, especially in the eyes of my married and financially dependent friends.

But this sense of freedom can get quite old. Too much independence can be a bore. There is no resistance, no friction, no push-me-pull-you excitement. No hurrah for winning an argument, no sense of satisfaction after solving a conflict.

This melancholy may be a passing thing but it does come back every now and then. It's those moments of self reflection when one tends to ask those silly existential questions that nobody can answer.

I blame it on isolation, on my child starting to live his life outside of my realm, on this virus that restricts everybody's movement, on the limitations I have established on relationships I've formed. I blame it on pride, on laziness, on the cold weather, on the sad background music playing right now.

As soon as I get up from sitting in front of my computer typing this post, the feeling would dissipate, like it never happened. But it will come back to haunt me again, in one of my unguarded moments of aloneness.