Still out here in the wilderness....

Is this the new normal? I hope not. This is ... well... not "exhausting" exactly, but tedious, I guess.

Here it is, Summer.

Not sure where to go with the Summer.

I have a vast list of goals and I am making progress on a lot of little things, such as slowly clearing out the cellar.

But Summer is a time of shifting sands. It's not like winter where the occasional snow storm disrupts everything, but otherwise you just kind of keep your head down and chug along.

In Summer, people are in motion. Things happen. So dedicating yourself to a regimen of small tasks and crossing items off your to-do list can be surprisingly difficult because it's all happening within a wider context of everyone else's active Summer lives impacting you.

And in the middle of all of that I am trying to come to grips with this new brain I have, the one with the right side that keeps telling me that things HAVE to change, and in a big way, even as the left side constantly weighs odds and analyzes circumstances and occasionally looks around and sees just how crazy all of this is. It's stunningly crazy.

In the middle of all of this, normally I'd call in a rescue to Tom and we'd hit the road and talk for a few hours, but something weird is up with Tom and he's gone completely off the radar, despite my repeated attempts to get hold of him.

So once again, I am in a bit of a holding pattern. Nothing is changing and everything continues to constantly ruminate in my head.

Of course, this is all centered around one concrete objective - the road race.

So I guess I need to focus extra tightly on that for the next 7 weeks.

So... let's try something new.

Thirty days of optimism!

Sure, why not.

I can do that. And really, nothing to lose, everything to gain.

I tend to avoid any kind of positive outlook, preferring to keep it real and avoid being a rah rah pollyanna, but I think there's a happy, so to speak, medium where one doesn't have to be grim all the time and can be realistic but positive.

And I've come to realize that that's the key to a lot of things.

Dan Asquino said two weeks ago, "life is a merciless reflection of your own attitude". I think he's essentially right about that and it's a lesson I have learned very late in life. Now comes the challenge to internalize it.  To some people, this comes easy. I am not one of them. I am naturally cynical.

But Summer is here, and while the livin' is not easy, per se, it is easier than at other times of the year.

I'm out exercising. I am eating better. I am making slow but steady progress at the house, crossing items off my to-do list. I am still bothered by the mental events of the Spring, but I can, at the moment, deal with it. I'm realistic. I know there may be some upcoming days when I crash and burn, and I know it's not going to take much at the moment to knock me off my axis. I get that. I know that going in. But I have nothing to lose. So why not? June 4th to July 4th. Time to be a little bit positive for a little while. Time to redirect the path through the woods in my head. Maybe. We'll see.