grateful

All of yesterday and all of today I was planning on writing a monster post about how good the end of this week has been to me, about how I'm finally getting my running legs and lungs back, about how my mom (a little biased, I know) said some really nice things about my latest writing project, about how cute my nieces and nephews are, about how I feel like Tony from West Side Story (something's coming, something good), about how I met with a recruiter at the insurance place and actually wanted to work for that organization, about how the insurance company sent me a letter the next day to ask for more information about me instead of just wishing me luck in my further pursuit of a career, about how playing Halo II online with friends is fun even if it isn't as fun as playing it with friends in the same room, about how amateurish and aggravating and at the same time wonderful the writing group I went to today was, about how I've suddenly decided that I like the sun and walking toward it with my eyes closed and my back arched, but then tonight, I was just spent. Nothing remotely bad has happened to me in the past several days, but I was pretty down for a couple of hours tonight. I know the depression was largely due to exhaustion--late night Halo, phone ringing early in the morning, running, trying to keep up with a group of very chatty, opinionated though unsophisticated (I hate that word choice there, but can't think of something appropriate that isn't condescending at the same time, maybe undeveloped?) writers, writing at the park, helping to deliver newspapers--but I got to thinking, What happens when I do get a job? Will I get this tired and depressed every night? Will I feel like writing? Will I feel like finding a wife? Starting a family? Enjoying that family? When will I find time for yoga AND running? And karate? And. . . Heh. . . Jack Johnson comes to mind here: "He got none but he thinks he got so many problems and he got too much time to waste." Yeah. I'm depressed because I'm not going to have the time or energy to do all the things I want to do? No one does. But I'm not even there yet. How about this first: Start doing the things you want to do. If things start piling up, make room. If there isn't room, pick which things are most important and focus on them. For now, you have plenty of time. Do what you can with it. Write. Date. Run. Sing. Yogasize. Make it so the things that you want to do on the side when you have a career are so ingrained in you that it feels like it would take more of a toll on you not to do them than it would for you to do them. . . Sorry, I sometimes need to give myself little pep talks like that.

I'm grateful. This may seem like a cop-out, but right now I have this overwhelming gratitude toward you, me, that guy over there, the lady from the place, this computer, televised sports, a night clear enough to feel the stars, a filling meal, driving with the windows down, this townstatecountryplanet, the dog that enjoyed smelling my hand but never let me pet him, the universe, God, everything. I'm just grateful (20).