Are you "Checking out?"

It's happening again.  This ball and chain I have bolted around my chaffing right ankle is being picked up by the hands of time.  With a jolt the chain is jerked hard sending me crashing to the ground.   Fingernails splintering over the rock crusted road as I'm being dragged forward like a speeding train I grope frantically for any firm hold, moving ever faster towards the upcoming new year.  I know what fate awaits;  I will undoubtably be dropped on my ass only to be faced with the same Sisyphusean cycle again.