Highs and lows
Today has been a day of extremes. Some good things happened, some bad things happened, and overall I think it was more or less a wash. At least it wasn’t boring.
GOOD: I found one of my favorite shirts this morning as I was digging through the piles of clothes carpeting the bedroom floor. Bonus: it was clean.
BAD: As I was getting into my car, I realized I’d left my watch on the nightstand. I didn’t go back to get it because Sammy would’ve thought I was coming home, and I hate to disappoint him like that. I felt naked all day.
BAD: The Chick-Fil-A on campus was having problems with their credit card machine. Today was probably the first day all year I haven’t had cash on me. The line at the ATM was long, too—people like them some chick’n.
BAD: Caught up in the drama of lunch-getting, I completely forgot about a meeting I was planning to go to on writing internships for next semester. There’s another one tomorrow, but I’ll have to miss an hour of class for it.
BAD: It rained today. I knew it would, so I smartly wore pants that reached the ground (where the mud and puddles are), chose shoes with no traction, and left my umbrella at home.
GOOD: Lucky for me, it only sprinkled while I was walking to and from class. The minute I got in my car and drove off campus, though, it POURED.
GOOD: At work today, my boss asked me if I’d like this man (not Stephen Colbert (I wish), but the CEO he “shadows” in the first part) to buy me lunch next week. He and another upper-level guy will be in town, and apparently they want to visit with a couple of the little people. She actually asked me and two other tutors more senior than I, but they were both busy, so I’m in. Normally lunch dates with strangers (not that I have many of them) make me nervous, but I’m actually looking forward to this one.
BAD: A construction project that has been snarling traffic for more than a year on a major highway near the office was finally completed last week, and the road has gone from four lanes back to eight or nine. Imagine my surprise, then, when on my way to class I found traffic worse than I’ve ever seen it. I travelled one mile in 16 minutes—it would literally have been faster to walk. The cause? A car with a flat tire in the right lane. Seriously.
GOOD: Despite my getting there ten minutes late (see above) and spending the ten minutes after that sorting out issues with students who had not been shipped books and/or had been given misinformation about which classes they were supposed to attend, the class I taught tonight went wonderfully. If I count correctly, this is the tenth time I’ve taught this class (or some earlier version of it), and it gets better every time. Have I mentioned that I love teaching? Love it. It makes me feel all warm and giggly inside.
GOOD: Halfway home and hungry, I remembered, to my great delight, that I’d stashed a Chocolate Raspberry Explosion* in the fridge last night. This is perhaps the one benefit of being absent-minded—it’s easy to surprise myself.
BAD: It’s nearly 2:30 in the morning, and I’m not in bed. Self, I know it sucks that you get home late every night, but you need to quit doing this. Sleep is good. So is being able to wake up on time.
See? Up and down. My mood, on the other hand, has been surprisingly stable. Aside from a weekly-ish panic attack over the re-realization that I will someday die, I haven’t been feeling very emotional lately. Am I stressed? Of course, very much so. But I don’t feel overwhelmingly happy or overwhelmingly sad as often. I think a large part of this is that I’m so busy that I just don’t have time to sit around and mope. There’s always someplace I have to be, some work I need to be doing, something I should think through.
I hope once I finally finish moving (my move-out date at the old place is tomorrow) and get settled in here, things will calm down and I’ll have time for a few mindless pursuits again. It’s nice that my life is full and exciting, but all this “living in the real world” and “getting shit done” is wearing me out.
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* Chocolate mousse with raspberries in it and raspberry sauce on top. It cost a few cents more than my dinner, but I think I’m okay with that. You would be too if you tasted one of these—they’re phenomenal.