Stuff.

I've been very sporadic with the blogging this semester, and I could promise that will change, but honestly until finals end it probably won't. It's not just that I've been busy, which I have. It's that this semester, more than any so far of nursing school, is exhausting. Mentally, physically, emotionally. I've loved what I've been able to do and even the super emotionally taxing oncology and mental health rotations. I find what we're learning in class fascinating and engaging. But still, after 8 weeks, in the simplest language, I'm pooped, in every way. I need a vacation and Thanksgiving seems like a long way away.

But I thought I'd just share a few of my most recent and random thoughts:

-I love that it finally feels like fall. From the weather forecast that may soon change, but for the past few days I've been embracing the cold and the clouds and even the chilly rain. I love fall. I love sipping red wine in sweat pants with the heat on in my apartment after a long day. I love wearing cardigans and scarves and boots. I love warm dinners when the air outside is chilly. I love the changing leaves, the smell of fireplaces and burning leaves, the pumpkins outside of grocery stores, the pumpkin in beer. Fall feels like change but not in the way spring does. Spring feels like something new. Fall feels, to me at least, like returning to something old and familiar and warm. It feels like coming home.

-I've been desperately trying to catch up on local theater happenings and saw Regrets Only and Hound of the Baskervilles last weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed both but thought Regrets Only had real, lovely moments of humor and poignance (even if as a whole the story was a little patchy and uneven). Hound of the Baskervilles was silly and slapsticky and perfect mindless entertainment for a Sunday afternoon in Hanover.

-I've gotten up to 18 miles in my training. And I am so ready for November 10, ready to get to 26.2, that impossible distance that has been in my periphery all year, but equally ready for the training to be over. I love running. I almost always feel great after running. But as my training weekend runs have gotten longer and longer, I've realized that I will never be a life long marathoner. Because super long distance running, runs above 13 miles, give me this physically empty, drained feeling I've never encountered in my history as a non-athlete. After 18 miles I felt useless. All I wanted to do was sleep and lie on the couch. And it's not just physical. It takes everything I have emotionally and mentally to get through these runs. I train all week and I eat right and I get enough sleep and chomp gus and drink sports drinks and coconut water. But no matter how prepared I am, running for three plus hours (I'm slow), is just hard. And I'm ready to have my weekends back, to not have to spend Friday night preparing for a long run and Saturday night recovering from one. I just have one long run of 20 miles and a taper and then that will be it. After that I'll be ready to run a marathon. And that is insane and ludicrous and something I honestly never thought I would say.

-My birthday is next Wednesday and I will be 27. I know I should be freaking out and wringing my hands and going through a crisis of some kind, but 27 doesn't freak me out. Sure it sounds old, because I think after 21 any age sounds older than we ever really could grasp when we were young. But I'm okay with 27. 26 has been pretty flippin' great. I'm sort of looking forward to what 27 brings. Now next year when I turn 28 I could be getting Botox and dressing like a 16 year old and generally flipping my shit. But for now, I'm okay with getting a year older.