Also

What I meant to say, before I got all starry-eyed about food and tirade-y about running, is that I really want to get my thesis finished so that I can get on with my life.

I've been in grad school entirely too long, and it's really time to move forward (to another degree, heh). It's not being in school that's a problem, it's the way I put the rest of my existence on hold and dismiss things, sliding them down the priority scale to "I don't have time for that," when really, I should MAKE time for the things that matter to me.

I keep thinking through how to do things differently, how to stop the incessant worrisome chatter in my mind that strips the joy out of experiences, that nagging sensation at the base of my skull that relentlessly bitches about all the things we have to do and how behind I am on everything. I don't know when I started saying "I wish I could, but I just don't have time," but it falls effortlessly from my lips these days, even as I find myself blatantly, shamelessly wasting time.

I don't want to spend any more of my days avoiding work or lamenting how long I procrastinated before buckling down and getting something done... but I'm sure I will. It's finally spring, the sun is out, and it's almost warm enough to start going out on the water, but I am sitting indoors on my computer, listening to the birds through the windows and wondering if I can take a walk with my camera for a little bit (instinctively, my mind says "I really can't"). This was all completely avoidable.

I have a lot of social stuff planned in the coming weeks because I expected I would have finished my thesis by now (having no actual plan for how to do so other than Just Doing It). I neither want to cancel plans, nor spend concerts, operas etc. worrying about how much work I have to do. I want to be able to spend afternoons sitting outside with friends, talking and relaxing and saying how relieved I am to have finally gotten that damn thesis out of the way.

More than anything, I want to stop looking at everything in terms of time and whether it was well spent. There is no intrinsic value to time, and its elasticity enables one to stretch it around whatever level of consequence seems most appropriate to a moment. I want time to stand still again because I am no longer constantly cognizant of its passing. I want to listen to stories without rushing to the conclusion so I can wrap up conversations. I want to gaze lovingly in someone's eyes and will the universe to wrap itself entirely into that instant because nothing else matters.

The only way to get time back is to write this thing and calm the hell down.