Today (day of writing this) was a wonderful, warm day. By which I mean the temperature hit the 40s in the sun and I celebrated by going for two walks, both of which eschewed my heavy coat and hat. I even rolled my sleeves up to maximize my total amount of exposed skin so I can get the most benefit from the sun as possible. I know this warmth is short-lived because the temperature is already beginning a slow decline towards the single digits (which it should hit by tomorrow), but it gives me hope that things are improving. Or at least that the winter is turning away from frigid cold and back toward moderately freezing.

This is, of course, still Wisconsin so it is entirely possible that we’ll get another arctic plunge or polar vortex or great freeze before the spring has properly begun (and maybe even more before the spring ends), but I still appreciate today. It was nice to be able to go outside, enjoy the sunshine, and not have to deal with the light sweat of being just a little too warmly dressed or the general clamminess of being active in the cold. It was the perfect temperature for a walk with just a sweatshirt. It was also really nice to be able to confidently step on all the damp spots on the sidewalk since it is too warm for black ice to have formed in the salty runoff on the sidewalks like it does when the wind chill and clouds mean it feels like -20 or lower outside.

It was just nice to experience. After a weekend of being sick and feeling like crap, a month of stress and problems, and a year that redefined my life in many significant ways, today was just a nice day. There was sun, I laughed at a podcast a bunch, I tidied up my apartment a bit, I got work done, and all after a night of sleeping like shit that, honestly, wasn’t that bad. Nothing special happened today, nothing drastically changed so far as I can tell, but it was just a nice day and I forget how great a normal day could be. I got enough done. I gave myself a decent to-do list. I took care of a bunch of stuff I was putting off, made plans to do more, and feel capable of handling the things on my to-do list even if I’m not going to try to cram them all into today. There’s nothing urgent going on, nothing that needs to be resolved immediately. I can do that stuff later this week, later this month, or even next month. And, hey, Tuesday the 22nd of the 2nd month of 2022 is coming up in three weeks (as of writing this) and that’s going be the “two”-iest day I’ll see in my lifetime, barring significant advanced in medical science and individual lifespans. Maybe I’ll get cupcakes or donuts or something for my coworkers just to mark the day.

I’m doing my best not to put too much on how I feel today, to not expect too much of myself or to place too much importance on anything that happened today. Setting reasonable expectations and achievable goals is important to maintaining my health, mental and physical, so I’m trying to keep myself in check. After all, it wouldn’t do me any good to have had a nice day today only to hate tomorrow because it doesn’t measure up to today. I also shouldn’t feel like something major happened today because then, if things don’t continue improving, it’ll be easy to write this off as a fluke rather than the slow and steady progress of all the work I’ve been doing on myself and the benefits of time set aside for rest and recovery, after all.

I hope you had a decent day, today, even if the weather wasn’t as nice as it was on the day I wrote this. I hope that day was nice for you as well.