Balance

I’ve been busy…well, mentally anyway. All of my Israel plans fell apart and had to be reassembled. The youngest Israeli niece got engaged after we made our plans…and then they set a wedding date: July 17! That is about a month after I was planning to return from the June trip. So my stepmother and I had to scramble to change everything. I was able to rebook my flights for July, paying only the change fee. I kept my trip almost exactly the same—still have three nights in Paris, about the same time with Spesh (maybe a little longer). The only hit is that the car rental is about twice as much as before. It’s still under $200 for a bit over a week, so not too bad. I was pretty frustrated, but now I feel like I have some breathing room. I start to get mentally prepared weeks before I travel and now it feels like all this free space has opened up in my calendar. I’ve already almost finished the two new knitted hedgehogs (though I think I only needed one). I have a packing strategy in mind. My passport expires a year from July…I think I will still wait to renew it until after I get back, but I do have time to renew now if I start the process this week. I might even put my place on the AirBnB market, which I wasn’t going to do in June, just because it was too much of a pain to get things clean and ready for guests.

Last weekend, I went on a 17-mile organized bike ride in DC. I rode more like 20 since I biked to the start. For the ride, the streets of DC were closed, which was pretty cool. It was cold and damp but I’m glad it was cool! We got to ride over the Whitehurst Freeway! That was fun. I hope they have it next year, I’ll happily pay the fee and go again. Yesterday, I did another long bike ride—25 miles total—and it was pretty rough. It was nearly 90 degrees and I was dragging. On the long uphill of the first half of the ride, I was way behind the rest of the group. I didn’t have this problem last weekend and I figure it has to be the heat. At any rate, I survived and rode the whole way home. Physically, I feel fine today, which is kind of amazing. I was sure I’d be more sore. My shoulders are stiff, but that’s because I started up my shoulder exercises again this week. Biking may have exacerbated it a bit, it’s not the main cause. Anyway, it’s cool to be able to do these medium distances. I’d like to work up to 50 miles, but that probably isn’t in the cards for this summer. We’ll see.

Work continues well. The project I was working on got wrapped up quickly when my boss said he’d done some editing. I realized that I had to share my major reorganization with him so he wouldn’t be wasting his time. I managed to wrap it up in a day. He commented the next day, and we sent it to the editors on Friday. Deadlines. That’s what I need! However, with that project wrapped, I have to figure out what’s next. I have been working slowly and steadily on another project, which will now have to be the focus. It needs to wrap up someday too and I still don’t have a handle on the timeline. That’s what I’ll figure out next week.

And men…dating…all is well. Still involved with my two not-boyfriends. Liking them both for the very different people they are. Enjoying my interactions with both of them. Mostly. Marty continues to get me riled up. I wonder if that’s something I want? I know fighting is sort of my weakness. I hate it. I really hate it. But it also feels “normal” since I grew up with parents who fought constantly. Sometimes I get angry at Marty and I don’t even understand why. But Ian…I can’t even imagine getting angry at him. I’m not even annoyed with him anymore now that I understand his sense of humor better. I do wonder how sustainable this situation is, but so far so good. I still fit in other socializing—I went to a reception for the volunteers for the tutoring I’ve been doing last week. The best conversation I had was with a woman about her studies in theoretical linguistics. She’s moving to England so it’s not like we’re going to hang out, but oh well. I’m in a good place right now—a good balance. Work is pleasant, socializing is good, I have enough to alone time to recharge. I’m on the bike, I’m cooking at home. Sure, I haven’t vacuumed in a month, but nobody’s perfect.

Grateful for: balance.