Smug.

I've been smug lately.

It's not necessarily that appealing, but I have reason. We're coming up on a year of my life being pretty damn wonderful with only the very occasional day of rest.

It's raining now, again (in Vancouver this is normal) and my other-season-self is sitting around the corners of my consciousness waiting to come back; soon we'll have winter-Greenie for your reading pleasure. She's more analytical, a little less laid-back, sharper, but I find I am keeping my sensual streak into winter (this has always been hard for me before).

I could list all the wonderful things in my life here, but there's no possible way to get them all, and making a list of things like that is exclusionist: it assumes that 'most of' my life is bad, and the things listed are the good exception. I'm trying to think of bad things to list here, as sort of an alternative, but the only thing I can think of is a bit of turbulence in the life of several of my friends, and they're all strong and steady enough that this won't be permanently damaging.

I should clean my room right now, but the upstairs roommate is moving out, and the hallway is choked with boxes. Wonder if I can find a garbage bag...

Water.

I've spent so much of my life living in tomorrow that I've missed a lot of it. There are so many days when perfectly lovely stuff has been happening to me, but I've been too worried about whether tomorrow will happen the way I want it to happen to appreciate the lovely things around me. It's a good way to waste a life.

Luckily, my life is unwasted. It's been full and now it's happy too, something which I much appreciate. I've learned to stomach contentment and even enjoy it, as it's no longer a setup for a coming fall but instead something to be savoured. It used to turn my stomach.

I'm dissociating my identity with things that others make or do, and instead making my conception of 'me' spring, not from things I might or could do, but from the person I am, and the things I *do* do, and do like, and yes, do dislike. My friends do anchor me, yes, but only after I anchor myself.

When I say things like this, as I do rather often, I think of all the times I or other people have spoken rather too stridently about how they would never do this, or would always do that, or were the other. It usually takes about two weeks for the things talked about to fall down in those cases.

I suppose it's possible I'm in one of those right now. I certainly have a sense of stark disbelief when I look back at the last year and I see-- no enormous angst, no big dramas, but instead energy turned towards things I like. I never would have expected that I would be like that, not in a million years. I'm still pretty contrary at times, but I'm not so kneejerk reactive as I was. I'm still silly about romances, but I don't need my actions to follow my wandering feelings. I'm still analytical, discoursive, antisocial, huge on one-on-one contact, obsessive, quick to love and quick to dismiss, symbol-heavy, candid, etc. I've learned, not self-control, which was always there, but to value myself enough to go to the effort of self-control.

I try, now, not to work on problems but to make them go away as fast as possible-- to take an issue and snap things where they need to be instead of going through the laborious, painstaking process of gradual alteration.

I try to keep a sense of proportion, and still often fail.

I try to be responsible and adult-like, and mostly succeed.

I still start most livejournal sentences with 'I'.

I don't cook as much as I want to, my social life is still wildly inconsistent, and I may never stop leaving clothes on my bedroom floor.

I have a four-foot-long stuffed unicorn in my bed, and I want to forever.

And so my life goes, on, and I am both the river itself and the force sweeping the water along. Change, which always so terrified me, is not so frightening now that the constant of my happiness remains.

And now, on to looking up plans for wooden oceangoing kayaks.

Wednesday

What're people up to tomorrow (Wed) evening? Anything interesting going on? I feel loose end-y.