The last couple days I've abandoned my usual morning piano time in favor of sitting out in the hammock, reading and writing in my journal. It's just been that kind of an introspective time, recently. Not only are journals good for sorting things out in one's head, but I am often struck by their creative power as well. Looking back about three months I find some lists I made about the way I wanted my life to be, and it's interesting comparing them with what has happened since then. The list I made of job qualities, in particular, seems to be especially well represented in my current library job (which I got a month after making the list). I'm not quite making an ideal amount of money, but on the other hand that's been a trade-off that has allowed me to keep other aspects of my life balanced in reasonable proportions (well, about as much as could be expected). When it comes to the rest of my life, though, I notice that the areas that have been causing me the most confusion recently are the ones that I did not detail as specifically back when I was making these lists. There's a correlation there, though I suppose you could interpret it in various ways. Anyway, this is all just the most recent phase of a process that's been going on for over a year. I think it's important for me to remember how far I've come in that time without forgetting that I still have a lot to do to get to where I want to be.

Hmm. Having typed that, I realize it sounds like there's something that's going to happen sometime in the future, at which point everything will be over, though that's obviously not the case. I do feel that I've been in a very distinct transitional phase for a while now, though it seems like it might be sort of hard to define the end of it. And even when I reach the end, I still hope to be always learning and changing and growing, so I'm not sure what would be after this. Oh well. Another thing to add to the list of stuff to figure out.

There's just one other random thing I feel like sharing now. I learned a wonderful new word the other day: glisk. A glisk is "a slight touch of pleasure or twinge of pain that penetrates the soul and passes quickly away." (From There's a Word for It! by Charles Elster.) For some reason that word just seems perfect.