Even Good Change…

January became slightly more chaotic than I’d anticipated. At this moment I feel like I’m in the tail-end of an avalanche flinging me toward the future.

1. My manuscript’s due date for Crossed Crow Books was February 1st. I edited, revised, and added five thousand words over the course of January and turned it in on 1/31. This week I’m waiting for next steps (which sound pretty straightforward).
2. I officiated a wedding for friends in the middle of the month. I wrote the ceremony in October or November, but that week before the wedding was a bunch of prep and coordination (thankfully, significantly less as the officiant than it was for the bride and groom and wedding party).
3. I spent a long weekend and part of a week at my Grandma’s, during the one cold snap we had this winter of many degrees below zero. It was lovely and I got TREASURES: love letters from my great-grandfather to my great-grandmother, dated 1920’s/30’s. I haven’t had a chance to read them all yet, but the ones I did were wonderful.
4. I taught an Intro to Bellydance class in my town the same week my manuscript was due, which consists of lesson planning and music coordination in advance, plus ALL THE NERVES that come from not teaching for nine years. Goddess, how has it been nine years already? The free intro was a success, so it looks like I’ll be teaching on Tuesday nights for an 8 week session…it’ll be a nice way to move into spring (even though it’s already weirdly springy here…golfers on the course in January and February is WEIRD. I should be snowshoeing!!).
5. I got a job. I didn’t want a job, if I’m honest: my sabbatical wasn’t supposed to be up until March, and I have a trip planned for the first week of that month. I had every intention of running out the full year of sabbatical time before I went back. Dammit. But this team and company is too good to pass up for a couple of weeks difference, so here I am, starting a new job on Valentine’s day. My interviews were, you guessed it, on the days before my manuscript was due.
6. I’m on the local Co-Op board, which started for me in January. Because no, I apparently don’t have enough going on.

This is one of those moments where I can be completely overwhelmed in a good way with all the joy and positive movement in my life, and yet feel completely overwhelmed in an exhausted way at the coinciding timing that makes me want to crawl back into bed and shut my brain off for a few weeks. I’m not doing that: this week I have a bunch of prep happening for the job and I’m going back to finishing the novel, while I have time off. I’ll go back to work on Valentine’s day (ha) and get ramped back into BA-ing for a couple weeks before my trip happens, and things will morph into another new normal.

That’s life, right? Change is inevitable, and while even good change can be stressful, you just find your way to whatever the new normal looks like. Currently, the new normal looks pretty bright, so none of this is a complaint: it’s just been a busy month.