Long time no see

Hey, you.  It's been awhile.

You know, I started this blog because I had all these thoughts rolling around in my head and no one to tell them all to.  I needed an outlet.  But then recently, I got so busy that the thoughts quieted.  I simply didn't have time to let myself "muse out loud" (as my uncle would say).  I was dealing with the end of the school year, and moving out of my apartment, and finishing babysitting, and before I knew it, it was the middle of June.

But now the dust has settled, and I find myself drowning in thoughts again.  And I feel...tired.  Do you ever feel like that?  Like you just want a break from being a grown-up?  I had a day like that today.  I just wanted to shut the door, turn off my phone, pull the covers over my head, and forget about responsibility and to-do lists for a day.

When cocooning doesn't work, I make chocolate chip cookies.  I've made cookies so many times over the years that I don't need to look at the recipe anymore--I know it by heart.  I don't know exactly what it is about baking that soothes my soul.  Maybe it's the effort that it takes to mix all the ingredients by hand--I never use an electric mixer.  There's something to be said for knowing that I didn't take the easy way out.  Or maybe it's feeling of safety and comfort that comes with smell of freshly baked cookies.  Of course, it could always be the healing properties of ingesting large amounts of raw cookie dough.  Every girl knows that cookie dough can get you through even the toughest of times.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that baking isn't going to solve my problems this time.  I feel tired, but restless at the same time.  I'm pretty sure I know the source of my endless flood of thoughts.  A few days ago, my boyfriend's dad had a health scare, and while my boyfriend struggled to go through one of his first real acts of adulthood (taking care of your aging parents), I struggled to give him support halfway across the world.  Everything seems to be ok now, but I'm left with this tired but restless feeling.  It's like when I was a kid and my legs would get this jittery feeling, and my mom would call them growing pains. (This was before someone started marketing the made up diagnosis of "Restless Leg Syndrome.")  Well, the growing pains are back.

I don't really have a specific point that I'm trying to get to.  I guess I just needed to ramble.  Hopefully, I'll start posting more regularly.  And once I'm in New York, I'm sure I will have plenty to post about.  But for now, forgive me for my melancholy moment of wallowing.  I know it's not very fun to read, but who's really reading this anyway?  It's just me, shouting into the vastness that is the Internet, waiting for the echo of my words to bounce back.  And you know what?  In some ways, that's oddly comforting.