What I did on Spring Break

So here I sit on the first Monday after spring break trying to find a rhythm that I have misplaced or lost or perhaps unconsciously on purpose tossed aside. I spent part of this morning getting caught up on emails that have gone unreturned for a week. Just that simple exercise, which would take less than an hour in weeks past, has taken the better part of the morning and left me feeling like a nap is in order. It's interesting to me how easily I can slip in and out of a rhythm. School has been part of my rhythm for a couple of years now and I find it to be a rhythm that works well for me. It is a rhythm that I have found invigorating and engaging. But with that said, I fell out of that rhythm amazingly quick and am struggling to pick it back up. For the first couple of days of the break I was still in my school rhythm as I had a take home midterm due by midnight Monday, which I finished almost twelve whole hours ahead of that deadline, and on Wednesday I met with a couple of psychology department Docs to discuss my potential thesis and inquire as to their willingness to serve on my committee. It was shortly after that meeting, which went well I think, that I completely, although I hope not permanently, lost my school rhythm. In the blink of an eye and the beat of a heart I found myself enthralled in a brand new rhythm equally, or perhaps even more, invigorating and engaging. I am amused by those who know what they will be doing a week, a year, or a decade from now. I have surrendered to the fact that I don't know what I will be doing a minute from now. With that surrender has come a vivaciousness to life that I never dreamed possible. Oh sure, there are times when the rhythm gets hypnotic and causes me to sleepwalk through my own life, but those times seem to be shorter and shorter and further and further apart. Most days seem alive with promise and potential and a simple gratitude for this very moment which shall never again exist. And so I find myself attempting to integrate my school rhythm with my new found rhythm thereby creating a whole new rhythm. It is good. It is life. It is the journey.