Upswing?

I think I'm over the hump.

It's hard to tell, because the changes have been so gradual, but I think that all of this "putting one foot in front of the other" has resulted in me actually getting somewhere.

What made me realize this was a song. Namely, a particular song that got stuck in my head and stayed there for days and days. And when I realized this I almost cried out of sheer relief, because before that, the only thing that was getting stuck in my head was whirling negative thought patterns that chased their own tails and ate away at my energy and self-confidence.

I was IMing with a friend this morning, who said he'd been looking for someone to hang out with at home but inexplicably all of his friends seemed to have left town. And I said "Well, you can e-mail me if you're bored," and he said "Yeah, but that's not really the same," and that was something I could resonate with. If you're looking for someone to hang out with, writing a canned e-mail to a long-distance friend really isn't the same. And then he rushed to reassure me that this wasn't meant as an comment on my character but simply due to the fact that I'm far away... and it was slightly embarrassing to me to realize how often I've needed this kind of reassurance, but on the other hand it was all kinds of freeing to realize that it just isn't necessary anymore. Not everything is meant as a personal insult! What a lovely thing to learn about the world. :-)

It must have been really exhausting to converse with me lately. I hope I can continue to inch my way up. Who knows what the next milestone will be.