the gilded month

I KNEW September was going to be glorious. I felt it in my weary bones. When I turn twenty-five, I thought, things will start looking up.

And oh, they are.

A slightly constricted social schedule is blossoming outward. Already good friendships are deepening into a refreshing, relaxed, familial closeness. My need to retreat from all of humanity has abated, as has my distaste for sitting in silence. My house is astonishingly clean. I'm happy to wake up in the mornings. I'm slightly more motivated to cook.

I'm getting my life back.

Having MP for a neighbor is completely marvelous -- we spent most of last year yelling, "Why do you live so far away?!" and now it's a hop, skip and a jump down the alley for some riotous fun and listening to her landlord doing shotput in his apartment above her.

The job is up and down -- with the stress, chaos and insanity that revolves around the practice of law, there are many days when I think I'm about to yield up my last shred of mental stamina to the four winds; those days are even worse in combination with the depression and recuperation from the stress of the summer. Yet there are others, like today, where I feel productive and more or less on top of things. My bosses are consistently supportive, corrective, and concerned with my wellbeing, while expecting monumental things of me. It's a challenge I haven't had in awhile.

Grad school plans are progessing apace, insofar as I'm further resolved to go. I miss my long vacations and the ability to skip class. I miss the learning environment and the (slightly) gentler pace. I miss having the time and space to focus on writing.

Then last night MP and I went for Chinese and met the new Victor Lee. He asked us all about our academic/professional lives, was duly impressed by our responses, and heaped a take-out box with free crab rangoon while we waited for our order...and, ladies and gentlemen, crab rangoon is my favorite. I had been on the verge of ordering that instead of the egg rolls and egg drop soup, but some little conviction clamped down on my soul and told me to order the egg rolls and soup instead. So I got to have it all. (And isn't that what everybody wants?)

Now with a few new promising possibilities on the near horizon, and with anticipations of a ROAD TRIP to Grove City in three weeks, I find myself, for the first time in months, simply and purely happy to be alive.