For the first time since last year, I am baking. With my old industrial-style bakes, I seemed to hit a peak in 2013-15, and it’s been slowing down ever since, finally reaching complete nothingness as 2017 dawned. I remember baking only twice in the second half of 2016, and what little inspiration I had for it has disappeared. I don’t think I have ever gone nine months in my entire life without baking – until now.

And now, as I take it up again, thinking I might get into it once I start, I keep thinking, “I want to get this over with.” For the first time ever, I got no joy from the process.

I think I have questioned before how these shifts occur, imperceptibly. You don’t realize that the excitement and drive is leaving until it’s just gone. I am not sure I understand. I don’t think I need to.

I will finish this particular bake, and I will do one for Halloween. And that, oddly, may be the end.

But the last year or so has seen me (almost) wave goodbye to all kinds of things I thought I’d never tire of: writing letters, creating and sending my Halloween cards and CD mixes (the last-ever physical copies go out in mid-October) and now baking. Other things have begun to be more important, and for the first time in my whole life, I have begun to think more selfishly. Good or bad, I am simply tired and no longer want to make these efforts.