"My heart going 'Boom-boom-boom'"

So I went from day to day
Though my life was in a rut
'Til I thought of what I'd say
Which connection I should cut

I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going "Boom-boom-boom"
"Hey," he said
"Grab your things, I've come to take you home"
Hey, back home

It's a funny thing.  I had things to say--so many things to say.  I have a draft post that I may or may not ever publish.  It's a post about anger and disappointment and burnout, all of which are things I have but that I don't much feel like talking about right now, and--this is the funny thing, not ha-ha funny but the many other kinds of funny--maybe I'm moving on.

Maybe, it occurs to me, when Peter Gabriel sang about packing things and going home in "Solsbury Hill", the song he wrote about leaving Genesis, part of what he was talking about were things he wasn't going to take home, the rage and frustration.

Anyway, I'm no longer an Assistant Public Defender.  After a quarter-century, I am "retired."  Which is a funny (there's that word again) way of saying that I have quit with a (reduced) pension and benefits and will be doing other things.

Everyone always asks what those things will be, which seems sort of sad (the opposite of funny) that everybody's life revolves around work to such an extent that nobody seems able to think about a life where you're not doing that, or are doing less of it.  I'm going to play some guitar.  I'm going to try to get back to writing.  (It's a funny (again) thing, but a job that drains away your soul--a job that fills your heart up like a landfill, slowly kills you, leaves you with bruises that won't heal, to quote a completely different song by a completely different artist--leaves you with no spirit to do the things you genuinely love even when you do have the time.)  I need to lose some weight.  I've picked up a nice edition of The Lord of the Rings and I'm going to re-read it.  At some point, I think I'll see if the library is hiring.  Maybe do some volunteer work.  What I won't do is deal with judges or district attorneys or a system that's--ah, there's the anger again, there's the rage.

No more dumping and I'm going to nurse some bruises.

I'm free.

Boom-boom-boom.