Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: Ruins at Chiaravalle near Ancona, Italy
(1818)

“…it might not ever snap back to the way it was…”

Familiar reconnoitering points have disappeared. Long-relied-upon way points have turned unreliable, and travel has turned into repeated bouts of disorientation, degrading into despair. Where did the old reliables disappear? I know why they fled, but I cannot know to where or if they will ever return. (I suspect they won’t.) After months of denial, a begrudging acceptance starts settling in, then an emotion almost resembling pride. I cannot successfully hide my grief over losing reliable trails, but I realize that I am no longer precisely lost. I can still anticipate, if not traditionally navigate. I accept that I will face detours and that my original estimates won’t be worth shit, as if they ever were. A different game seems to be afoot now, and I am more-or-less successfully adapting. Do I wish I had not lost the benefit of all my former experience? That’s a definite yes! Am I nonetheless pleased that I still seem capable of discovering viable alternatives? That yields a more hesitant acceptance, though it still distills into a definite yea.

I still register shock when encountering another difference.

Tags: #EndDays, #PureSchmaltz