Work improved today, as expected. My knees are kinda better (still hurts to get up, almost doesn't hurt to walk), and the bewildering array of new tools and network configurations had me a lot less disoriented.
Man. They beat into my head that it's bad to overuse the passive tense, and see what happens? I write things like the last clause of that paragraph. Sheesh. I can't find a happy medium anywhere.
More and more I like the people I work with. Regarding our long pointless meeting yesterday to show us how to account for our time, I said that most engineers spend some amount of time not doing anything, while solutions percolate through our brains. My uberboss (anyone higher up in the ranks than one's immediate supervisor, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, which has arisen independently all over the place, and I think I came up with it myself; in any case this was the immediate uberboss) said, "Well, sure, just file that under 'Administration'. Like time spent picking your nose, for example." They're all good, smart people, and the first company I've ever seen that was willing to recognize my ability separate from my skillset, which is incredible, and they expect me to pipe up when I see something I think is wrong (which I did, while I was documenting some code). The commute is unexciting, but it's actually not that bad, as these things go--45 minutes to get there, so far 60 minutes to get home in the thick of rush hour--and over the next couple of weeks I'll be able to bring home the hyperpowered laptop they gave me and do some work from home, so I can leave the office earlier. All of these things, everything, feels workable and okay. I mean, I'm tired, there's some sad stuff kicking around my life, but who cares? It's right now, and right now is the most magical and wonderful thing ever. Right now is all there is, and it is all peace and freedom.
No, I'm serious. I'm actually this chill and not-bothered-by-things. I'm having emotional reactions and rather than being torn apart inside I'm noticing them, picking them apart to see where they're coming from, and coming back to center. What the hell.
One of the downsides to being so much happier in my body is that it's drastically raised my expectations for what it means to "feel good". I've been consciously relaxing a lot, especially my legs and shoulders recently, and I'm starting to really find my own way of movement. As a teacher said (I think Morihiro Saito Sensei), "aikido is a way of movement that has techniques"...I'm not learning to move like Kayla-sensei, which is good, because I couldn't if I tried. As I relax and all of my joints swing more freely, I'm starting to move like me, which is a tremendous feeling. It's also really noticeable when my knees give out and I can't really move like that any more. The lameness is overwhelming, but here we are.
Have you ever sat or lay there and taken some time to just be in your body? To feel every muscle and every inch of skin, torso out to hands and feet and head, to exist in a very full sense of the word, to not just inhabit this temple of flesh but to feel yourself expand to fill every last crevice? Feel everything pulsate with the simplicity of being.