Better...

We have had more sun than rain over the past few days- still moments of drizzle but nothing that felt like endless grey and gloom. Was that a fact in a scientific quantifiable sort of way? Or was that my perception?

Though I will feel even better when the three papers I need to finish are completed and turned in (better yet, after I attend the last classes of the quarter next week and take final exams the following week), I began to notice a huge oppressive weight being lifted when I made a definite decision to only take two classes each for the next two quarters. I could have been finished or almost finished with a single masters degree in counseling by next autumn, but lowering the stress levels makes more sense. There is no value to me (or the clients I hope to work with) in finishing quickly if I am all used up and burned out.

Friday's will be free days. I am not going to schedule anything for anyone else unless it is a real emergency. I might actually have time to do tiny bit of easy local hiking, take a few trips to the beach, see my sister, maybe even take a day or two trip north up the coast to find a favorite shoreline filled with ocean and sand polished jade and moonstone. The more I think about it all, the better I feel. This will be my reward for working so hard the last four and a half years.

Life without joy doesn't seem worth living. Joy seems to be in large part a matter of seeing and choosing the "half full glass". When I am feeling completely stressed, I don't have the time to look up, let alone choose "half full" as my frame of reference.

By the way, I finally received my diploma in the mail- the degree was "posted" in September at the end of the summer session, but the official document suitable for framing also notes -"cum laude".

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