This ain't my first time at the rodeo

If you look at my profile info, you'll see that this isn't my first blog. Curtis started one, which is somehow attributed to me, dedicated to our trips to the cabin in Virginia. Well, that's what we liked to call it, because "Driving 4 hours to get hammered for three straight days" makes us sound like a bunch of drunks, and no one likes that. I prefer "lush."

Then I did one this summer, at Tracy Haisley's urging. But, as I was in a bad, bad headspace, it was mostly just me bemoaning my lot in life and trying to keep my head out of the oven. Eventually, I realized we didn't have a gas oven, and writing, for the first time in my life, was only making  me feel worse. I kept writing the same things over and over, about how depressed I was, how my life would never get better, how pointless my existence was. In the past, I would have reveled in my dissolution and misery, but that was when I was younger and imagined that life would somehow turn out well. And this summer, I did not entertain that fantasy at all. Furthermore, I couldn't figure out what on earth I'd write about that would make anyone want to read my blog. Today's pajamas: black! Today's lunch: tuna salad on white! Today's best television show: Law & Order SVU! Today's accomplishment: getting out of bed!

So I stopped with the blogging. I was depressing myself, and it wasn't at all cathartic.

Then life changed, and life changed drastically.

On one level, I suppose this blog could be viewed as gloating, or crowing about my life. And maybe there's something to that, although that's not what I intend. I hate reading "Look how awesome my life is" bullshit, and that's not what this is supposed to be.

Instead, this is more a report of something I haven't had in a while: happiness. Peace. Hope. A goal. Sure, there's adversity: the stress of a new job; no pay until the beginning of February; chinchilla freakouts; missing our friends in SC; leaving our house. But there's also the excitement of a new city; of learning new things; of meeting new people; of having a job where I feel valued.

So maybe there's some gloating, sure.

But there's also some relief.