December 19th: Good

I have decided that December 19th is My Day, a day where the sun shines and birds sing - though not actually because I am in Scotland, a sunkissed land where the sun is snow and cold and love and hate and whisky. Yesterday was terrible, I did things I wasn't proud of and wallowed in self-pity. I lay, curled in my expansive faux-mink blanket like a silky black crow, rereading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss for the millionth time. I wanted to master Sympathy, to call the wind, to prove I'd made the right choice and everything would be better. But, as the real world is rarely so kind, I just lay, stagnant, pitiful, wallowing. When I finally drifted into that deep, impenetrable slumber that comes to the heart weary, everything compounded, a massing tower of guilt and pseudo-regret my conscious self refused to let congeal. In the night my phone dinged, and it buzzed. I slept through like a baby in utero, a tight, warm film between me and the reality of my situation. The binging didn't penetrate my warmth. I woke, convinced it was drawing nearer to late afternoon and soon the sun would slink beneath the castle. It was barely 10:30 and the city was clad in grey and white clouds, the kind of clouds that lock you in and suspend stagnation until it festers into action. These beautiful clouds welcomed me to the day. I opened my emails and waited. Days ago, weeks almost, I'd applied for more unwanted jobs than I realised I could deign to apply for. But there were two jobs I was desperate to hear from. My phone dinged and my emails popped up. the university I'd applied for sent me login detials! An exciting development on my eccentric career path! And then, blinking out from the top, all blue and unread, read the following. _________ Publishing RE: Malky. A reply. A manuscript I'd sent out mere days before had already had a reply. It was vague and indescriptive, but it was a reply, a semi-personalised reply. Possibly a form response, surely a form response, but a reply none the less. With names and dates and it was a reply.

So that is why December 19th is a good day. Because through the cloud clad sky beneath which horrific battles were fought and lost, I received a reply.