Only May

This week I've experienced the two extremes of the work-day: The Day That Flew By and The Day That Dragged Ass. Today was one of those days that just felt like it was never going to end. I was exhausted and cranky by lunch and the end of the day saw me examining the bags under my eyes in the bathroom mirror. I felt like I was trying to wade through molasses in my cute, summery heels. But oh, oh Tuesday and Wednesday disappeared before my very eyes. One moment it was 10am and I was having my toast and marmite and the next it was just about 4pm and I marvelled at the fact that leaving the office on time was a reality.

It was funny, because my partner in crime felt it too, felt the day being whisked away. For some time now, she and I like to say the date very slowly while looking intensely at each other. "Woowww - today is MAY twenty-first... Maaaay... twenty-FIRST!" It feels like our season just started the other day and now... now we only have five more weeks left of it. People have said to me that it feels like I just started, when really, I started six months ago. My job at work usually has me thinking and planning for a week ahead, so to me, it's pretty much June. And June means the end of our peak travel season, which is the end of my busy times at work, which potentially means me not working in the office over the summer (because, let's face it, even though I'm awesome doesn't mean that there's much business sense in paying me to sit around and tell people to recycle better), and THAT means that I get to buy plane tickets and fly over oceans and greet people with hugs and oh-em-gee I should probably start thinking about dates and buying those plane tickets NOW.

*wheezes into a paper bag*

Sometimes, the speed at which life moves scares me.

This is, for the most part, how my brain works: quickly and unnecessarily, aka jumping to conclusions. I don't know that I'm not staying in the office over the summer; I'm just making that assumption based on some random pieces of information I put together from conversations I had with three separate people. And this is probably one of my greatest weaknesses: my affinity for making things up and masking it behind l'aire du sense. When really, it makes no sense at all to make myself worry for no reason. I don't know anything, but I hope lots.

All too often I lie in bed, awake at night, and muse to myself about more than what's going to happen at work the next day or what my plans for the weekend are. I tumble through the flurry of mind-bytes that wonder what my life has become, and what it will be - what am I doing, where am I going, and how am I going to get there? And if I don't feel like I belong in any of the situations that I currently find myself in, nor the ones I've made for myself, then surely it means that I must not belong anywhere. And if ultimately I am going nowhere, then what the heck is it that I am doing in the right here and now? Lying awake in bed has suddenly become one of the more terrifying activities I've ever engaged myself in.

Amidst all the fear and worry of a future that lies so uncertain before me, there is a gentle, timid hope that wants to grow stronger. As much as I can't fall asleep for all my pessimism, I'd like to think that it is mostly my optimism that keeps my body and spirits up at night. I may play scenes from my past that I desperately want to re-live, but I also create ones that I hope will come to meet true life soon. I calculate invisible money and purchase non-existent tickets to far-off places in the world. I can feel laughter and taste colour. In my mind I make art with skills I don't have, I hear music that hasn't been written, and make love to a man I don't know yet.

I take a deep breath and count my lucky stars. So glad that it is just only May.
10:35 pm