Summertime And The Livin' Is Easy...Sort Of

Good morning readers. I love early summer mornings. I always find that it is easier to wake up for work and other engagements in the summer. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining brightly through my window, and a cool breeze (today at least!) is blowing around outside. Who wants to get out of their toasty warm bed when it’s pitch black outside and there is two feet of snow on the ground? Not me. But I never have a problem ditching the blankets in the summer. If I sleep too late on summer mornings, I feel as if I have wasted my day. There is too much to do in the summer, and sleep just gets in the way. Today is my last day of work before I have a much-anticipated three-day break. I usually only get two days off during the week, but a fellow co-worker needed another day, and I gladly offered up my Friday. I haven’t had three consecutive days off since my summer began. I have a feeling that when Saturday morning comes, I will either be ready and willing to get back to work or one unhappy camper.

Yesterday I went for a run along East Avenue in Bay Head/Mantaloking, NJ. If you run the street end to end and back again, the distance is 3.4 miles. When I finished my run, I had virtually zero knee pain. I woke up this morning with a little aching, but nothing compared to the “I can’t walk to class” – debilitating pain I felt in June. I’m not quite sure, but I think I ran a little differently last night, which may have helped. I was so relieved to learn that I could easily complete a 5K with little pain. Running races, as I’ve stated in previous posts, is my new goal this summer/fall, and I was a little worried that I would have to give up the dream of crossing a finish line and revert back to the elliptical for the rest of my days. After last night, however, I’m certain that I can slowly start training for longer races.

Running is how I deal with stress. I think I’m one of the few people in the world who actually enjoys working out, simply because I feel so much negative energy leave my body as I huff and puff down the road. Last night, I didn’t care about anything else but sweating out all of my worries and anticipations about the future. The job searching is turning out to be a much longer process than I thought it would be. Can you believe I almost didn’t return to my summer job because I was positive I would only be working there two or three weeks? Well, six weeks later and I’m still here. There is nothing wrong with working my summer job. After all, I get to go to the beach four-five days a week. But I’ve started buying the apparel for work. The pencil skirts are hanging in my closet, the dresses are wrinkle-free and ready to wear, and my heels are placed nicely in shoeboxes. They all want to be worn so badly. My degree wants to be put to use. My mind wants to do something that requires mental capabilities. I’m going to keep waiting patiently because I know it’s all going to work out; it has to, but I’m slowly becoming restless. I know I could be quite good at any job that comes my way (except maybe accounting…I would not be good at that.) I just want to begin proving myself, and that is hard to do when I’m sitting at home waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Until the happy day comes where I get the news that I have a starting date, which I hope is soon because I will be unemployed in four short weeks, I’m going to enjoy my days on the beach, send up a daily prayer to God, and run as much as possible.