In what seems like forever...

 

While I am well ahead of last year in terms of posts, man, it's felt like an eternity since I got on here to write.

What's been going on? Mostly the same. 

Mostly work. Work has transitioned from a heavy-deadline schedule to one that is equally busy, but with a great deal of flexibility for me to set my own deadlines. Which means discipline, which means sleep, which means that, after getting not enough sleep for months and looking at the reasons for this...

...I stopped drinking caffeine. Sure, it's been six migraines in two weeks, but it's also been the best sleep I've gotten in months and the best I've felt since I don't know when. That said, I miss coffee. I see someone else carrying an iced coffee during this beautiful spring we've been having and I fantasize about it. It's ridiculous. And it's worth it, even after the headaches and one day in particular where my adenosine went back to being my sleep-wake cycle's dictator and my dopamine/glutamate rebelled. Viciously. It's worth all that to be healthier, more balanced, and able to wake up and go to sleep on my own terms.

Some running. Back and forth, around town, wearing myself down as the runs get longer and becoming rejuvenated as I think about the reasons I am doing this. I hear often from my amazing running partner and life-long friend. She tells me her training success stories, I tell her mine, and it feels like we're really doing this together, and that is the best. Friends like her are one of life's biggest gifts, and she's a constant inspiration. And so funny, which makes the times when our legs feel like 1000 pounds so much more bearable.

There's significant stress about moving. Which, honestly, has been going on since February, but comes to a head now as I am less than a month away from the actual transition, and trying to face it with grace and optimism and responsibility (plus fun and a good sense of interior design). In eighteen days I will be spending my first night at my new place, my first my place, and it is the biggest transition I will have made since September in some ways, since taking my job in other ways, and since starting college in even other ways. It is a good thing, and I am ready for it.

And then there's a happy life. I've been reading inspiring stuff, laughing at my own folly, and this afternoon I sang with a great group of people, in Davis Square, like I actually knew what I was doing. It wasn't perfect, but it was, because it was real. And because there was ice cream after.