I Wasn't Sure I Could Make It

Time Works So Hard For Us, If Only We Can Let It.

Ireland Is Such A Young Society. The British Were The Ruling Class Up Until They Left About A Hundred Years Ago, And We've Been Trying To Work Out What Our Class Hierarchy Is Ever Since.

I Am Not Good At Noticing When I'm Happy, Except In Retrospect. My Gift, Or Fatal Flaw, Is For Nostalgia. I Have Sometimes Been Accused Of Demanding Perfection, Of Rejecting Heart's Desires As Soon As I Get Close Enough That The Mysterious Impressionistic Gloss Disperses Into Plain Solid Dots, But The Truth Is Less Simplistic Than That. I Know Very Well That Perfection Is Made Up Of Frayed, Off-struck Mundanities. I Suppose You Could Say My Real Weakness Is A Kind Of Long-sightedness: Usually It Is Only At A Distance, And Much Too Late, That I Can See The Pattern.

Over Time, The Ghosts Of Things That Happened Start To Turn Distant; Once They've Cut You A Couple Of Million Times, Their Edges Blunt On Your Scar Tissue, They Wear Thin. The Ones That Slice Like Razors Forever Are The Ghosts Of Things That Never Got The Chance To Happen.

Have You Noticed How Easily The Very Young Die? They Make The Best Martyrs For Any Cause, The Best Soldiers, The Best Suicides. It's Because They're Held Here So Lightly: They Haven't Yet Accumulated Loves And Responsibilities And Commitments And All The Things That Tie Us Securely To This World. They Can Let Go Of It As Easily And Simply As Lifting A Finger. But As You Get Older, You Begin To Find Things That Are Worth Holding Onto, Forever.