LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Christmas ghosts are out of order

It can strike just like that and for no solid reason it’s worse at Christmas — and the ghost isn’t helping.

“Everything’s happening around you, to you and you’re not part of it, no connection, no role. You’re better off out of it,” it offers and mentally, though not yet physically, you reach a conclusion.

You’re just another person clogging up the planet, not contributing, not worth your place in the squad.

Hang on though, on the plus side other than existing you’re not actually making the world a worse place, but that’s the case with most people. You’re not doing enough. Neither are they.

You think again. You’ll be letting people down; not many though, not as many as you would have done years ago because some of those have gone, left this life that they still wanted to live, some (my dad, my nan) at this time of year. Maybe that’s why it’s worse now.

Can you will yourself away as an alternative? If not, surely you should be able to. There are people who really want to be here who don’t make it through the day. It’s not fair.

Surely a swap can be arranged — you can save someone’s life. Transplant yours with theirs.

Why am I feeling like this today? What have I done wrong?

“It’s those direct debits to charities you recently cancelled to save money. Punishment for that. You thought by having them in the first place you had contributed something positive to the world, but it’s just not enough. It’s pathetic.” The ghost again. Thanks for that.

I’ll talk to someone then. Join one of those clubs where you can just turn up and tell your story. The story doesn’t justify this though. Nothing bad happened. Nothing worse than happened to anyone else.

I don’t want to talk anyway. I’m sick of talking. And listening. I wouldn’t be a useful member of the group and the point surely is to give as well as take. The ghost smiles and leaves.

These ghosts though, they’re out of sync — here comes Christmas Past telling me these feelings have emerged more since I realised my best years had gone — “wasted” like most people “waste” theirs on the usual choices of having kids or not, pursuing a career, buying a house, settling down.

“Those with the best lives, or at least with minds that can accept they took a risk and it either worked or it didn’t, don’t think like this. They produced works of art, music, literature in their creative years — their 20s — while you were just getting through life,” it says, adding that Charles Dickens (this is all his fault!) had completed The Pickwick Papers by 24, Dostoyevsky his first novel by 25, Emily Bronte had both written and published Wuthering Heights by 29, sister Charlotte had composed Jane Eyre by 31. You get the picture (book?).

Mmm... where have I been? What have I been doing? Mostly the things that everyone does; daily life, going to work, the shopping, the housework, spending time in the pub — what you do when nothing really seems to happen. “Lazy,” the ghost says.

Fortunately, or unfortunately — I genuinely can’t tell — my argument about this being a recent state of affairs doesn’t add up because I was always like this.

Only now can I see these thoughts were coming at eight or nine and had taken root by my late teens and 20s when, by luck or otherwise, I made it through.

I keep telling myself to just keep walking, walk on, walk away from this ghost, but when the hope in your heart has gone, what do you do?  And as the song goes, I get knocked down, but... well, not everyone gets up again. Not every time.

Come on then, where are you Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, what have you got to offer? Ah, here it is. A friendly sort.

“There are things in front of you  — Christmas, New Year, a birthday, a holiday, well, you have to carry on, you can’t disappoint people.

“You know, maybe that’s what life’s about anyway, that’s what gets you through, so just take it one day at a time, raise a glass and... happy Christmas.”

If you fancy moving it, there’s room at my inn Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.