Everything is bal­anc­ing itself out. I’ve stopped try­ing to pre­dict or con­trol my cycles of intro­ver­sion and extro­ver­sion, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and pro­cras­ti­na­tion. As Oscar Wilde once said: “The only way to get rid of temp­ta­tion is to yield to it”. By doing what I want when I feel like it, every need is met in turn.

Life does­n’t get more com­fort­able than this. It’s been a great sum­mer.

Now on mashed solids. Ruby at 11 months.

I’m glad I got here by myself, with­out the help of a friend, or lover, or wind­fall. It was some­thing I had to do on my own, so I’ll always know I’m strong enough to pick myself up and con­tin­ue grow­ing.

The only thing that’s real­ly miss­ing now is anoth­er cat (or two), but I already blew my kit­ty bud­get on Leonard’s vet bills. I’m not at the right place for a new adop­tion any­way, and I’ve decid­ed to wait until my major projects are fin­ished (hope­ful­ly some time around the end of the year) before I take on anoth­er life.

It’s offi­cial; Kyden has the soft­est, pinchi­est cheeks ever at eight months.

I’ve been back from my trip for about a month and a half, but it feels more like a year. I’m so dif­fer­ent now from the per­son I was before I left. I was dying then, but I’m liv­ing now.

The only way I can tell how quick­ly time is tru­ly pass­ing is in the faces of my friends’ babies. Each time I see them they’re mak­ing new sounds, say­ing new words, more con­scious and coher­ent. I used to envy the care­free inno­cence they have when run­ning about naked, the sin­gle-mind­ed­ness they pos­sess when engrossed with a new toy, but now I feel like one of them.