For all my hard work at the oraface, I’m rewarded with every other Friday off. I’m only able to take advantage of this intermittently – like 5 times a year – and today is one of those days.

Waking around 10 after 12 hours, I finally feel somewhat rested.

Pulling myself out from between tangled sheets and away from Troy, I threw on a bandana, a baby blue wife beater, yoga pants and flips and hobbled to my favorite coffee shop. Do not look in the mirror, do not brush your hair, do not collect $200.

I’m sitting on a cold metal chair listening to soft, cool jazz and three women at the table next to me are planning their escape to Portland. I hope to have a similar conversation soon, I’d love be back in a cool climate near ocean and mountains. A slower, more organized, friendly and clean pace.

The air has changed here over the last week, new pollens are floating around and the temperature is like home in the summer. Tom, a barista here, and I were comparing notes. He grew up in Minnesota and we talked about the new energy the change sparks, how we don’t feel like we need a snorkel or an air filter strapped to our faces to leave the house, how our bodies don’t feel damp and dirty with humidity.

It makes me miss my youth a bit, makes me long for family and for the friends that have long since scattered. Innocence that was lost before it was found and feeling smarter than my years…gone. Now I feel dumber than my years and question what I’ve done with the last 33.

There are a few things going on at work that had me feeling yesterday as though I was teetering on the cusp of a premature mid-life crisis.

I’m feeling unsettled and restless and kind of “what the hell am I doing and why?” and as though something big is going to have to happen or my head might explode.

I don’t know if it’s the season change that does this to me, or the mosquitoes that almost carried me off during an impromptu HOA meeting last night or my age or all my commitments and their ability to suffocate me silently.

Bah. Life.