Oh, man. I have all the chores to do. But between this brisk autumn weather, being curled up in this thick blanket, and nipping on this hot beverage, I’m not wont to get started just yet.

Midterms are here. A test each week for the next three consecutive weeks leaves me drained just thinking about it. Am I comfortable with the material? More so than I have been. Test worthy? Probably not. And so, with whatever free time I eke out, my forced habits will be going over memorizing nuanced details I’m destined to forget shortly after the semester ends. Study, study, little buddy.

I’m pleasantly surprised my dusty old synapses are rewiring themselves to keep pace with the learning. Have no doubt, I’m stressed and barely keeping pace, even so, I’m still in it. As I sweat under the challenge of taking in and storing the factoids these classes teach, I do wonder what I’m giving up as old synaptic pathways are reforged into new ones. I hope to hope it’s not my sense of self or any of the memories I hold dear. Brain, if you need to redo pathways look at repurposing that memory of the time I embarrassed myself over that girl. That feels prime. Ooo, what if we forgot all the lyrics to Oops, I did it again? Wouldn’t it be nice to regentrify that ghetto part of my mind with some fancy new mathematical principles?

When I’m not practicing my running jumps for all these god damned hoops they have me leaping through, I am doing life chores. Registering the truck, rescuing Grandma from smart phone technologies, laundry, and so on, again a sense of depletion just thinking about it. And here I am and there I go, just, I don’t know, moving forward. I miss the days of fiercely protecting life balance and enjoying those moments where responsibilities could go fuck themselves. I could use more of those moments now.

That said, everything’s got a price. Care-free freedom takes work, man. At least, If I want to maintain a sense of pride, satisfaction, and sanity. Taken too far or too carelessly, that very freedom will carry one into the gutter eating their own faculties. Not as free as they proclaim to be as poverty’s shackles weigh them down and shutter options one dim light at a time. I’m that guy. I’ve wrestled with nihilism enough to know better. I’ve witness predecessors take that route and cringed at where they’ve ended up. No, this hurt now, it’s surely the lessor of the two pains.

So, at least I’m resolved to keep the path. That’s a nice little certainty to cultivate. But believe you me, soon as I get the chance, I will unfurl my naked body and soul in a gooey pool of hedonism . . . Right after I get this one thing done, first.