Back on the Map

Hi all—I really never intended to drop off the face of the earth. Just needed a break from blogging, then got out of the habit, and then more and more days passed....anyway, still here. My anxiety got really really bad a few weeks ago and my mom ended up coming out to College City to stay with me for a few days. That really stabilized my brain/moods/whatever's going on up there, and I've been relatively okay ever since. I did start back on my Celexa (still paranoid about side effects but willing to give it a go for now) and I have a bottle of Ativan, which I've taken only once or twice...to be honest, I haven't really noticed any effect, which probably means I need to up the dose (I have 0.5 mg pills). But like I said, things feel a bit more manageable and I haven't really needed it all that bad.

So, a rundown of some life updates:

My class schedule worked out such that I was able to take the whole week off for Thanksgiving, so I'm at my parents' house in Home City several states away from College City. I was set to fly out Saturday afternoon.... Two cancelled flights, two delays, one two-hour flight, one eight-minute layover and a nearly mile-long sprint through Big Southern International Airport (I made it to the gate JUST as they were closing the doors, whew), another two-hour flight, and an hour-long car ride later, I finally made it home at 2am. Yesterday was full of sleeping in and hanging out at home and reading and coffee and home-cooked food.

My first semester as a PhD student is almost over, believe it or not. I have two papers, one presentation, and a project but all except one of the papers are essentially done/almost done. I am hoping to get that last paper mostly wrapped up this week. My next big project will be prepping for my conference presentation in January—it's been so long since I ran the actual data that I need to do some serious refreshing.

So, the boy and I are not quite an official Thing just yet but I LIKE HIM A LOT and hope it moves in that direction. He's super shy/not a big texter, so cue the internal angst of is-he-just-not-into-texting-or-not-into-me and is-he-just-shy-or-is-he-ghosting-me. But every time we see each other in person, I am reassured that this is real and he likes spending time with me and things are good. He is actually in the process of making some Big Life Decisions (school- and career-wise) and it's nice to know that he wants to mull it over with me and get my input. Plus he is super sweet and cute and speaks two languages and likes How I Met Your Mother and Jimmy Fallon and he knows how to order beer and he's a bit of a science nerd and he likes to read and YOU GUYS HELP I'M TOTALLY SMITTEN.

I had two semi-serious relationships in college, and have dated only one guy (very casually/very briefly) since, but I don't know if I've ever felt this excited/apprehensive about a relationship...and I can't tell if that's a good sign, or just a byproduct of me being generally on edge about most things these days. But I like him and I get giddy to see him, and I want to tell everyone about him....but then I don't, because I don't want to talk about it and make it real if it's not going to last. Love is total trip, man.

So..I came to this coffee shop planning to work on my paper, and instead decided to spend an hour blogging. Gonna pretend to get something accomplished before heading home. Peace out everyone, very happy Thanksgiving if I don't check in again before Thursday.