After a bunch of temperatures bouncing between the sixties and freezing, the forecast has finally shifted into some proper spring weather. Some looming storms, days rising into the sixties and then falling into the forties overnight, an occasional day or two in the seventies, and some nice windy days. I’m looking forward to the weather continuing to improve, even if I can’t go on my walks at noon anymore because I get sunburn far too easily thanks to one of the medications I’m on (and will hopefully be off in another month or so). It’s nice to not have to run my heat or AC, to be able to leave my windows open all day long, and to be able to go to work in shorts and a t-shirt. And sometimes a zip-up hoodie. But mostly the shorts and t-shirt. Throw in how nice it is to leave work at half past seven in the evening while still having enough sunlight that I don’t need to turn on my headlights during my drive home and I’m honestly pretty happy with the weather. Which, you know, won’t cure my depression or anything, but it’s still nice to have and definitely won’t hurt it. Its a nice little thing to have at the end of what have become incredibly long and exhausting days at work. Turns out that things haven’t really slowed down since a couple weeks ago and while I’m less emotionally and mentally stressed because the sheer volume of Things To Do is lower than it was back then, the physical stress of the labor required to test the project I’m mostly working on has picked up the slack. I wish I got to do this work while getting fresh air and not wearing a mask to protect myself from what one of my coworkers insists is “just some Spring sniffles,” but I’ve found other ways to extract some fun from the work I’m doing.

Normally, this is the time of the year when I’d start cajoling what local friends I’ve got into hikes, backyard grill-outs, evenings around a firepit, or even just hanging out in the sun on the weekend. Unfortunately, I’m currently scraping the bottom of the barrel by the middle of every week thanks to the twin exhaustions of my job and the way that one of my medications leaves me with fewer spoons that I’ve ever had. I’ve used two of my last three weekends to rest enough to even consider going to work on the following Monday. I tend to keep my nose to the grindstone for the most part and don’t really take days off (mostly because they get in the way of accumulating overtime and I’d rather take a full week off than a day here and there), so I rarely struggle with the desire to actually go to work. Sure, I might not want to get out of bed some mornings, but that happens regardless of the day of the week. I mean, I rarely get out of bed on the weekends until I’ve spent two hours there, reading or browsing the internet or, more recently, trying to stretch out my aching, stiff muscles. So it has little to do with work and more to do with my mental and physical well-being each morning, until recently. Now, thanks to work, my entire body is usually still store and worn out on Mondays and the thought of doing anything I don’t ABSOLUTELY NEED TO DO fills me with dread and an extra spike of exhaustion.

Still, I’ve got two friends who are within easy walking distance and they’re the ones who normally host the outdoor stuff, so I’ve got a decent chance of being invited to that stuff even if I’m not the one organizing it myself. And, since I’m in walking distance, I can go whenever I want and leave whenever I want on the days there are events planned. The ultimate stress-free freedom. I just have to work up the energy to talk to them about spring and summer weekend plans so they know where I’m at, energy-wise, and know to invite me to stuff even if I’m not particularly active in our group chats. I should be able to get that done this weekend, as long as nothing mentally or emotionally draining happens over the next few days. Which feels like a lot to ask, considering where I was when this week started (and where I still am most days this week, any time something even the smallest bit negative happens), but it should be achievable. Only one bad thing happened today, after all, so I’m feeling pretty fortified as I head into my evening and whatever I’ll wind up doing tonight. It’s also going to be my first evening where I don’t have chores or tasks that need doing, so I might finally have time to read or play video games. I mean, my chore last night was watching four Hunter x Hunter episodes so I’d finally be caught up to where Media Club Plus is so I could start listening to their next excellent episode the minute I had the braincells available for something I’d actually want to pay attention to. Which isn’t much of a chore, compared to the two nights prior where I had errands to run, cleaning to do, and laundry to fold that kept me occupied until eleven each night, but it is still a thing I needed to do and that’s a lot to ask of me when all I really want to do is nothing.

But hey, I can leave the windows open tonight and just chill as I breathe in some nice spring air. The cold snaps mean that not many trees had begun to bud, much less flower, so I’ve still got some time before my allergies kick into gear and I plan to enjoy every second of it. I just hope we get a nice, gentle rainstorm sometime soon, without all the wind, so I can sit around with my windows open and enjoy the nice, earthy scent of petrichor and damp springtime air. All we’ve had so far is super heavy storms, including one that dumped so much rain so quickly that the parking garage I park in started to flood just as I got out of my car. The drains just backed up into the garage, spreading water, dried up old leaves, and bits of trash everywhere. It thankfully stopped before it got to any of the storage units, but I left my apartment to keep an eye on it multiple times just to make sure I wouldn’t need to move my car out of fear that it would get swamped. Or that I’d need to call someone because it had risen enough to appear in the stairwell. Either way, some nice, gentle rain would be great. None of this tornado watch stuff we’ve had. It would be pretty funny if there was another tornado event this year, given that I just barely dodged one back during my first year in the city. Mostly at work, where offices where damaged, but also at my apartment which had been in the path of another tornado which thankfully blew itself out before it got close to the suburb I lived in. It would have been awful to deal with that. There wasn’t even a good place to watch it roll up from, in that apartment!