Two, or maybe three days ago I could have sworn that my life wasn’t going anywhere. I probably did swear that. It’s funny how things find their way to harmony while you’re sleeping.

Recently, one of the biggest negative influences in my life decided to just up and leave on her own. I mean, that’s not to say I didn’t find value in the friendship, but to have someone make you feel like a constant failure in all things; I can’t exactly say that makes a good friend. Or a good life.

Yesterday I took Jasper out on a drive; we spent a couple hours together exploring Northern Virginia. Originally I was looking for another way to work, some way to avoid I-95 so I didn’t have to sit in traffic on that road anymore (sitting in traffic somewhere else is somehow more appealing). I drove through Manassas and found a nice out of the way two hour drive that led me to Alexandria, and I can get to work from Alexandria but in the end I didn’t find any better way. So instead, I just kept driving. I found a Farmer’s Market, a circus, something called Frying Pan Road (let’s live there), one of those mom&pop ice cream shops, and memories of a distant time: I’d drive down a road and suddenly everything would look very familiar, I’d spend ten minutes on that road wondering why until my younger self turned off and suddenly it didn’t look the same. I used to drive around like this in my early college years and it’s weird that I don’t remember doing it until I travel the same roads. I guess sometimes life is like that; you have to experience the same thing twice before you understand what’s going on.

I get it now, though. I’ll save my total mental breakdown for another day. Today I’m smiling in the moments I catch myself not.

I’m running out of secrets. Pretty soon I’ll just be… boring. (First things first: I have a happy secret. The next bit’s worse: I intend to keep it that way.)