Book of D: I Choose to Make Chicken Salad

I woke up at 4:30 am. We are staying with our uncle in Lubbock for the weekend. It was a much-needed excursion for me, after the mood I awoke to yesterday morning. I am feeling so much better this morning. My mood is positive, my mind is clear, and my outlook is good. I even had a dream last night that I returned to work at the university. Heck, if the opportunity arose to work there again, I might just take it; however, it would have to be with a different division.

Anyway, as my mood improved yesterday, my attitude followed. I was rather stoic and quiet for pretty much the entire morning yesterday.

As my spouse asked me questions, my answers were mostly monosyllabic: yes, no, or I don't know. I really hate being that way. My demeanor was equivalent to how it used to be before I figured out, or rather when my doctors figured out, that I had mental health issues (i.e. GAD and MDD). I used to be such a rut-maker (not to be confused with a muckraker), which basically means that I lived in a rut and often wanted everyone around me to live in a rut, too. For that, I am sincerely and truly apologetic – to myself and anyone else I burdened with the actions.

So, today is a new day and a new opportunity to make things positive for myself. I need to tweak my resume for one, and then take all the materials I have saved through the years, during grad school, and upload them into a study guide with online study cards (and even tangible index cards) to prep for the NCE. I don’t know what my future holds for me, but I take great solace in knowing that I am not alone in that. What I was meant to do will eventually find me. Or maybe that’s not really how things work, all serendipitous and all. But I do have to remember that things are within my circle of control as far as work goes. I have so many opportunities waiting for me. I worked long and hard to obtain all this wonderful education, so I must take that arduous labor and turn it into something positive. Like my high school cross-country coach used to say: you can either make chicken shit or chicken salad.