It was a rough go for a few weeks there in January and February, but I don’t wallow. My baseline, the place I always return to after highs and lows, is “pretty damn happy”, and I’ve come to really like this about myself; it’s served me well and kept me sensible.

I’m not quite up to the baseline yet, honestly, but it’s coming as life swirls on. It’s mostly in friendships that I’m finding joy (girls night woot woo!), but some in work, hobbies, making plans for the future that are happy, and in rearranging this apartment to better suit a life solo.

In the house I grew up in, the light switch to the basement was in the kitchen at the top of the stairs and the laundry was in the basement across from the stairs, so if someone flicked it off absentmindedly while you were down there, you’d have to stumble all the way over and then up stairs to give yourself light again. If you were folding clothes and suddenly found yourself plunged into darkness, it was just easier to start hollering that you were down there so they would flick the light back on.

This whole thing has been scary, but when it happened and I started screaming “Light! Light!” and pounding on the walls, the response was a dozen little beams snapped on, held by good close friends, and oh, hey look. There’s a light in my own hand, too. And they are growing steadily brighter. Although it’s still dark, I’m no longer afraid.

I’m not broken or bitter, either and that’s it. That’s all I got right now. That’s my bottom line.

It’s a pretty good one, actually.

***

In other news: IT’S SPRING TIME!