So Internet is completely down at work, leaving me with NOTHING to do. I’m effectively so bored that time is standing still.

But it’s funny; I would do nearly anything to be able to stop time this summer; there have been so many right nows, todays, right this seconds. There has been quiet contentment and uproarious laughter, and it’s all so lovely, I want to hold on to it, and stand in the light as long as possible.

It’s like this: now is the most contented and comfortable in my own skin I think I’ve ever been.

I am not racked with anxiety. I am not crying spontaneously, or without reason. I am not struggling (Boo to thee who say you cannot do NYC on a budget.) I am not longing. I am not unhappy. You may say this is a lot of “nots” – what are you, anyway? — but I tell you this list of negatives is incredibly significant and positive, despite it defining me in negative space.

So I sit here, in this little den I’ve created of comfort and stability, and I look ahead. I see the weekend; an outing to Culture Club with the girls, going to Coney Island with Jill & Drew, another Sunday in Astoria. I see next week, another set of Astoria-centric outings.

I see the next month of cramming in last minutes and last moments. I see a list of plans and people to see. I see good-byes that I’m refusing to think about right now. I see a life that it full of…well, life.

And then, that’s it, I look ahead, and there is leaving this den. There is packing up my apartment. There is driving to Chicago. There is starting school. There is a life that is just plain different from the one I’m living right this second.

And while it is scary, I am not paralyzed. I’m excited about the new things life will bring in the next year, even if some of them will bring some pain, too.

At first I was scared stiff by the thought of my life changing rhythms. Did you know I burst into tears when I found out I got into U Chicago and insisted I didn’t want to go? I didn’t want to leave the cacoon of comfort New York was becoming. It was at the corner of one phrase and another, a final push to learn to let go.

Now I’m generally sunny with occaisonal bouts of doubt. Only occaisonal ones, that stay for a beat and then move on.

So, you see, I think I know how this works. Change is good. My mind knows this now. And I am not collapsing into fits of anxiety, and I am not succumbing to fear. I am embracing change and looking forward to it.

I just wish time would tick by a bit more slowly this summer, that’s all. I wish these long hot days of summer would become just a tiny bit slower. I wish it would all stop flying by so fast.

And so the internet goes back up, and there is distraction and things to procrastinate my assigned data entry again. But that hour ticked by, no joke. So maybe someone is making time go by a little slower for me. Maybe.