Milestone

My countdown hits 75 today. Seventy-five more times I will wake up and face the new day here. Seventy-five more times I will gingerly put weight on my mind to see if it'll support me today. Seventy-five more times I'll go to sleep to bar-style German Techno Funk and wake up to the gentle hum of bakery customers (except on Sundays, of course).

I've traded in insanity for a rollicking grab-bag of medication side effects - sleepiness, brain fog, constant hunger and the resulting nasty new body shape, forgetfulness, muting of former personality. But all in all, I'll take the trade. If it's one or the other, I will chose the new improved personality-free Jess (new! now with stomach rolls!) over the one who wailed and wept at the drop of a hat, who entertained a well-trained debate team inside her head and who lived at the edge of a black, yawning abyss.

Life's a trade-off, I guess.

Here are some things I will be trading in, come September (I find it hard to muster up an opinion one way or the other on most of these items. But I'm still scared):

• My car-free lifestyle. Not counting my vacations at home, I have ridden in a car approximately 10 times in the past 4 years. My first time back behind the wheel after having been here a year and a half was scary. I drew a blank for a second - which hand goes where? Which foot? Where's reverse again? Here I understand my feet to be my primary mode of transportation. That will change.
  
• Hanging up my clothes to dry. I wonder how many of my clothes will shrink beyond all recognition the moment they hit a dryer for the first time.
• My empty bookshelves. What I've often absentmindedly missed while I've been here (coming in a distant second to "roommates, family and friends," of course) have been my books. Now I will have them all back. I wonder if I like having them around because I actually read them or just because it creates a nice booksy atmosphere.
• Living alone. I'm sure that having roommates again will help to drown out the constant thudding chorus of "alone alone alonealonealonealonealone" that inhabits my mind, but on the other hand, now I'll have to share things I am used to having to myself. Have I sunk too deep into my own nonrituals? Have I become eccentric or tedious?

I guess time will tell.