Waves

There's a good reason I haven't posted in way too long. Life has been really hectic/difficult.


Things are going well on the Paul/unemployment/writing front. The last couple of weeks have been. SUPER. stressful for me at work and he's taking care of the house, of me, and his writing, and enjoying a little bit of a vacation. We're fine financially and we went on a grocery trip to stock up for the next month and a half - which was totally fun. But this budget consciousness has brought around feelings of stress and frustration that was a huge part of Rich and I's life. And even though there's not any issues around that with Paul and I it's still there. It's like going into a place where you've always been stressed and unhappy and even though the environment now is perfectly fine, you're a little wary and every now and then you have flashbacks of "how it used to be". Classic conditioning, gotta love it.


Work is stressful. They laid off another 10 or 13 people on the 22nd (two Friday's ago). We're down from 125 to I think 83? now. So again with the stressed out and irritated and freighted people all around me. I'm barely keeping ahead surging waves of workload, and now really live for Friday's/weekends so I can pop my head above water and breathe, relax for a bit before treading water again on Monday.


Monday's are going to be really special too, because for the large hospital project I'm working on I have meetings from 8 am - 5 pm with an hour break for lunch. *sigh* I hate meetings. They've become most of all of my work right now. Attending them, taking meeting minutes, typing those up, typing up notes other people take for meetings I don't/can't attend, etc... Trying to balance that with the Microsoft project and the random crap that comes up every day, my inbox is overloaded with things I'm not going to get to anytime soon. Prioritization and letting go - my saviors.


And the petering out of the antidepressant meds/withdrawal symptoms have reintroduced me to the issues that've plagued me most of my life. Being an interesting intelligent person, wanting something that's true in your life - all of this comes with a price. And that price is wondering sometimes what the point of it all is. Why am I here? What's my focus? What's my reason? Delving into the depths of your character and analyzing your flaws and the "why" of who you are. I guess explaining the emotions make them trite and simplistic when they're everything but. It's been hard getting through it. Especially since my thyroid is really low and I've been bottoming out on the energy scale. But the universe is beautifully serendipitous. Paul has lived with depression on one scale or another for most of his life and us talking about is has really been helpful. Having someone else who does understand and does have valid suggestions for how to deal with those bad moments has been really positive. Being with Paul I believe has accelerated my growth and development as a person. I would have come to the conclusions sooner or later on my own, but with Paul it happens sooner, easier, with more growth and less pain.


The last couple of days have gotten better and better by far. I've come to terms - for now - with some things and I've had some really great days. I also got through some physical stuff that I think was heavily influencing my mindset/physical reactions.


I did Critical Mass on Friday, which is this wonderful festival/parade/shenannigan havings-like ride that 100+ to hundreds of people attend every last Friday of the month and it was beautiful. We corked traffic downtown, blocked the Aurora bridge, and went through a major parking garage. SO much FUN! It's nice being on a bike on the road and not being afraid of the cars. For once a month, for select areas, bicycles own the road. The cars stop for us. We ended up at Golden Gardens and Paul and I had our first sunset together -- although this couple blocked our view in the last minute and we leaned out so we could both say goodbye to the sun setting behind the mountains over the water. It really was beautiful.


And I got beautiful tires, that are 320 tpi (high thread count) and they will be as beautiful as egyptian cotton sheets are. mmmmmmmm..... I also have dialed in for the most part my saddle position, which has made my ride SO much better and allowed me to get back up to near my faster speed, so I'm not all stupid slow like before. I'm excited to take them out for a twirl. Friends are coming over for dinner tonight and Paul and I went to watch the Terminator movie - which was really good. I really got into it and thought it was beautifully terminator-tastic. Paul thought it was more of an "action movie" rather than Terminator movie, but they had such great scenes that tied in from the earlier movies that I really loved it. It didn't have so much of that - look at this new terminator thing we were able to CG! - and had more of a good story and acting that was believable - I thought it added some depth that I liked. Anyway, the last couple of days have been really good.


And I'm looking forward to July 3-8th. Paul's mom is coming down and I can't wait to see her. Plus, I have 6 beautiful wonderful gorgeous day's off. 6 of them. In a row. I. Can't. Wait.