So much happens so quickly, sometimes. There are life’s ordinary complexities, all piled up on top of one another. Jobs and kids and the natural pull and push of relationships. Then there are other complications, which come in and out at random times – usually when most inconvenient. Things like illness, accidents, maintenance on cars or houses or bodies. Then there are the major life changes, which come into play at crucial phases of transition, and which are almost always unavoidable. For example: if you have elderly parents, one way or another, you will need to see to their transition into a different style of living to the one you remembered them experiencing as you were growing up. These are natural obligations.

And then there are the other, small, shitful things that get heaped on top of the pile of all these others. They are not disasters, but they dampen the soul a little. Like your elderly father’s cat testing positive for feline AIDS and having to be put down.

I know it rates a zero on the scale of human misery and suffering, but still… it’s not nice.