The Hymnal

No, I didn’t have this before last night. Sorry, Randall!

Wilco (The Album)

I’ve had this from the stream for a while, but now it’s great to have it in physical form.

I start therapy on Wednesday. I may need it after the PMR, heh.

Also, things continue to be good. I had a dream last night that I went back to work today, where I got yelled at by everyone involved for coming back early. :chuckle: Today was actually the first day I was eligible to go back, as the leave I’m on requires that you be gone at least two weeks. Admittedly, I am tempted, but there are some things I want to get done around the house and with myself before I start back to work. I meet with my shrink again tomorrow, and I think she’ll be happy with my results. I know that I am.

Posthumous Success

This is the seventh Brosseau record I have bought. All have been wonderful.

I’ve also been thinking about what I was doing wrong, because hell, it’s not all the drugs, man. To argue that my choices have no effect on my mood is just such utter bullshit, and turns meds into the crutch that so many people are afraid they’ll be. I strongly suspect that one of my friends who is struggling with depression right now fears meds because of the crutch concept. I want to tell you that they are not a crutch but a restorative—and you need that to keep the car on the road, but at the end of the day, you still have to drive, dammit. Kari sparked the thoughts that I’d had going to mind in writing about her issues with overcommitting.

Simply put, I got so busy at work that my fear of overcommitting—which has burned me out in the past—lead me to undercommit to anything that was not my job. Church, family, friends, self … all of you got sacrificed on the altar of my career. It was good for my career, but eventually left me such a broken shell of a person that I couldn’t hold it together to do the one thing I was theoretically trying to save.

It is entirely true that I am an aerospace engineer turned project manager. But to argue that this is all I am is just so, so wrong. I have long prided myself—rightly, I think—on being a well-rounded person. But the only way in which I can be considered well-rounded is in my physical appearance, which is not what I would call a Good Thing. [Just ask my knees and hips, which are both really barking tonight as I sit here in my desk chair.] I’m working on this, though. I plan on going flat out for the 40 [sometimes 45, sometimes 50] hours a week that my job asks of me, but I’ve got to do other things besides that lest I go absolutely batshit insane.

I’ve been working on this in two ways: one is, of course, seeking to get back into a church home. The other is something that finally came to mind today: auditioning for the Huntsville Master Chorale. I go on Wednesday. The time commitment may prove, ultimately, to be too much, but I owe it to myself and my baritone to stretch myself a little bit and have some fun.

Follow my progress on Readernaut.

Misty and I went to Barnes & Noble today after lunch with Stephen, and well, it as sitting on the new fiction paperback shelf, calling to me. Griffin is a guilty pleasure—Clancy without all the hammering over the head of his politics plus better characterization. Back to 1940s Argentina I go!

As the title indicates, taking this much time off is an exercise in separating What I Do for a Living from Who I Am. My life is radically unbalanced in this regard, and I’m trying to restore it to balance. I’m also going stir-crazy. I have no profound insights as of yet; I have two more weeks for those, I reckon.