Except that it does... in fact, it ends today.
On the scale of things for this year, I'm ranking July right around January as far as emotional stress levels. Not that there haven't been good things this month. There have. But there's also been a lot of shit hitting the fan. I've been a religious basket case, apartment-hunting, and making stupid decisions (not all, but a couple of biggies). Joe had his class five days a week on top of working and fretting about the fall tuition hike. Everyone's been on edge this month, not just us... Jon and Kristen broke up, Locke and Jeff have been working nonstop, people have been pulling out of the Yellowstone trip left and right, Jon was in an accident this week, Sean had no job and a baby coming in four months (and now has a job but has to move 2 1/2 hours away... with a baby coming in four months), Molly's impending wedding is causing her endless amounts of stress on top of moving, dealing with family, and running out of birth control options. Everyone's in a money crunch, and no one seems to have enough time to do anything... the whole month, most of the summer really, seems to have slipped by and we've all been too stressed out, tense, and busy to have noticed. Somehow we've reached the end of it and I'm not sure what we have to show for it.
But today is July 31. That means tomorrow is August 1. Joe's summer class is wrapping up, my apartment is (hopefully) close to being squared away, Molly's wedding is in nine days, and I have a five-day weekend coming up because of that. The following week is the Erie County Fair, and a week or two after that I'm moving. :D (And that takes care of August... scary the way the weeks fly by.) But tomorrow is August 1, Ryan's twenty-second birthday, seven weeks until MY birthday. The fourteenth of this month will mark the half-year point, six months since Valentine's Day, Joe's and my unofficial anniversary. In nine days my wonderful beautiful Molly friend will be a married woman. August is going to be a month of good things, if we can sit back long enough to realize it.
And so my friends, if your July has been as strange and terrible as mine has, know that it's over. A new month is right around the corner and full of possibilities, and I don't want to waste it. I don't want to reach August 31 and wonder where the month went.
So I'm making some resolutions. Yeah, people usually do resolutions in January. My New Year's resolutions for 2003 are currently inapplicable though. They have been since February. And I don't think I even kept them that long anyway. So I'm making resolutions now.
I resolve:
- To leave July in July. Dumb stuff happened but it's over, it's done, and it can't be changed. We make mistakes and we learn.
- To be more decisive and more assertive.
- To not let little things get to me, and to spill them if they DO get to me, rather than letting them fester.
- To remember where I'm going and why, where Joe's going and why, what we both need to do in order to get there, and what the best things are for both of us along the way.
- To remember the reason I got into this religious mess in the first place, and keep my focus there no matter the details.
- To be constructive and productive.
There. It's short, but I think it's a pretty good list. All in all life is good. Certain things (and certain people!) are worth the effort that I don't always put in. Sometimes I do a great job. Sometimes I fail miserably. I'm only human. So is everybody else. ;)
Happy end of July. Happy beginning of August. Happy happiness and lazy days of the remains of the summer. :)