Living Peace

As I went through my regular news and blog routine this morning, I noticed that I haven't been posting much content to my own blog. Yeah, I've been posting goofy toy pictures, Friday Feasts, and the like, but I haven't been doing much in the way of narratives, life updates, or personal opinions/thoughts on matters of the day. After a little self-reflection, I've come to the conclusion that I'm encountering something similar to the doldrums (a windless area of the oceans near the equator).

After a period of "action" that stretched from September to early this month, I've entered an extended period of living calm. Rather than fretting about dissertation chapters, a job, grading, the pending move (scheduled for late July), the arrival of a new member of our family, and other usual sources of stress and anxiety, I find myself in a place of inner peace and quiet. With the dissertation and job search complete, I don't have the usual March/April WTF-Am-I-Going-To-Do-About-A-Job? crisis rattling around my brain. Being a short-timer at my present teaching position, the grading doesn't seem so daunting--I just need to get it done. We've figured out the basics of the move and it all appears doable (ask me about this in late June). The closer we get to the TLO's arrival, the more I know I'm ready.

Without the usual levels of anxiety and stress, I'm living one breath at a time and enjoying every moment. STK and I have been catching up on DVDs: Clone Wars Animated and Hellboy last weekend--Love Actually and Ray are on tap. I've also been doing a lot of reading. I finished a couple Star Wars novels last week and started the Labyrinth of Evil, the book that leads up to the opening scrawl of Revenge of the Sith. One Breath at a Time, a book that applies Buddhist principles to AA's 12 Steps, has also consumed a fair segment of my time. I even found myself inspired to meditate a couple nights back--that hasn't happened in at least a couple of months.

Peace. Calm. Contentment. I'm rather enjoying the doldrums.