People are for­go­ing their heavy coats for light jack­ets, even a litte skin. But win­ter still lingers in the crisp air, a reminder that it has­n’t been long since those frigid nights, but that it’ll soon be warmer and brighter. On the right days, I can wake up with the warmth of the sun on my face, dri­ve with the win­dows down, and eat din­ner in the day­light.

The cats sit intent­ly by the back door for hours, lis­ten­ing for any birds come home for Spring. They haven’t heard any since last year, and for Byron, that’s pret­ty much a life­time. Nowadays, I mea­sure time by how much heav­ier feels every day. There’s a com­fort to be found in know­ing that your cats are grow­ing and healthy.

It feels like so much of what I used to cher­ish has fall­en to the way­side. Like I’m relent­less­ly try­ing to catch up on sleep, on time spent with friends, on gui­tar prac­tice, on var­i­ous projects, on get­ting to inbox 0. With time now such a valu­able resource, I’ve been re-eval­u­at­ing things to sal­vage as much as I can. Figuring out the dif­fer­ence between what I tru­ly enjoy and what I enjoy because I think I should, between what I need and what I want.

It’s strange to think that I’ve end­ed up here, and yet it’s hard­ly dif­fer­ent from where I was not so long ago. Life is always inter­est­ing, no mat­ter what age you are, and regard­less of how you think you’ve set­tled into it. If you’re doing it right, at least.