the weight, it has been lifted

Let's talk about the five-thousand-pound weight that's been lifted from my crooked shoulders this last week.

It was a big one.

It affected most every minute of my day so that even when I was not "working," I would be thinking about working. When I'd be reading something that ultimately would, I knew, contribute to my work, I'd stop every ten minutes or so and just look over at the pile of crap on my desk and wonder how I was going to magically transform it into something we in academe might call job security.

The big sigh of relief I let out on Saturday, well, it turned out to be a massively cold one, so cold that I just walked the dog for all of five minutes and our nuts fell off. Five degrees out there, not taking into account wind chill.

When I'd be reading at night "for fun," I'd feel this invisible pull coming from my home office, nagging me about the work I wasn't getting done.

I went to a therapist for about a year to try to learn how to just be and to let the work come as it would. It worked for a while. But the thing I learned most about myself is that I don't know how to not work. Work has been for so long my safe place.

Hillary asked me the other night what I'll be stressing about now. The book. My weight. There will always be stuff to stress about, but with these two top-tier publications accepted, I can breathe. Holy shitters, I can breathe.

Never fear. There will still be plenty of tirades and fears to come. But for now, I'm working on my breathing.