This is what my life feels like right now. All I see ahead of me is a tunnel called “the big project you thought was going live July 1 has been moved up to April 1”. Until I got to work this morning and read my e-mail, I thought I had just two more intense days to get through before I’d get some breathing space. By Friday night, I’d have finished up the tasks remaining for this phase of the project, and my boss would fly off to L.A. to present it all to the customer. Next week, I would leave the office early enough to fit in a workout and some quilting time before bed. I wouldn’t be so tired that I’d write “tale” for “tail” and “wail” for “whale” in my morning pages and have to bring diet Coke along for my commute in case I started to feel too sleepy to drive. I was living in a fool’s paradise. Now I know that for the next 32 days I’ll be spending more time at work, not less. It’s bleak.

It’s bleaker because it’s the tail end of winter. At this point, I’m tired of winter. I don’t have any more ski trips to look forward to, so I have no need for the snow. Shoveling it takes time away from things I’d rather be doing and driving in it slows my already long commute. Road salt residue coats almost everything and makes it look grayed out and dull. The outside world is dreary, so I need to do things inside to cheer myself up, except now I’ll have less time to do that because I’ll be at work too much. Bleah. I’m bumming myself out here.

I wish I were at home sewing right now. The quilt I’m working on is full of bright hues– oranges and reds and purples and blues and greens. I took fifteen minutes before I left for work this morning to sew some blocks, figuring I would probably get home too late to do anything tonight, at least if I wanted to stick to my “no sewing after 9 p.m.” rule. The riot of bright colors in this quilt is a great antidote to the neutral winter world outside.

***
This has been one in a series of Random Acts of Journaling.