It is difficult to not look at my life from the past and not feel diminished in some way. The siren song of nostalgia is a difficult to tune resist, as I find myself feeling more isolated and alone than I have in years. I speak with fewer people on a regular basis these days. I have fewer recent conversations in all of my communication channels. I have no weekly events except the one I have laboriously scraped together every Sunday. I barely have the energy to even think about making any kind of positive changes to my life, let alone actually making any changes. I am in a rough patch and the thought that yesteryear was better is a difficult one to deny when I am watching the sun set while I fill up my water bottle for my final hour of work as the building settles into silence and darkness on a Friday evening. I am not the only one working still, but, like me, we all work in isolation and silence, largely unaware of each other’s presence. I do not know their life situations, but a part of me wonders if they, too, have little waiting for them but a trip home and a quiet weekend doing their own things. Sure, I’ll do some grocery shopping and get my weekly takeout before I settle into my apartment for another weekend, but that’s not much of a social life. The events I have this weekend will hopefully keep me from falling into the silence and isolation I’m increasingly familiar with these days, but it’s little comfort as I feel the building’s heat shut off and the temperature begin to drop while I’ve still got work to do.