Then it was Ma- Jun- July. 

A draft starts in April, and then it was May. And despite the fact that May feels like the longest month ever – did you realise it’s 31 days? Does anything actually happen in May after May Day? A day so boring they couldn’t even come up with a more interesting name for it? Is it even a month that counts given the uncertainty expressed in its name? – it ended up being a rather wholly busy month, and so it was June, and you know what June is like. Honestly, May should trade its 31st day to June so we can have a chance to get some things done before the middle of the year arrives all in a huff. It shouldn’t be surprising when 30th June shows up and all of a sudden you’re in the back half of Twenty bloody Seventeen and 2018 is just around the corner. Remember when it was still 2016 and you thought “how can this year get any shittier?” and then 2017 arrived and the conclusion was “oh, yes, this is how,”? Well, we’re now further away than ever from the utopia that was 2016, and it’s now under six months to go until 2018. If you conceived a child today, it wouldn’t be born until March 2018. The end of March 2018. That’s where we are now. Or will be in 9 months time, you get my point.

Phew. A breather.

How the hell is it July already?

Oh that’s right, I’ve decided I didn’t really need free time after all, and am now completely occppied in entirely planned and unplanned ways. I opened a book yesterday for the first time in about 4 months because I finally found myself with a half hour of time I hadn’t allocated out or somehow spent on productive and unproductive activities that choose to occupy my brain. While that moment felt good, it was also tinged with “but I should be doing x, y or d instead…”

Let me tell you now, doing an MBA while working full time on an intensive project and also trying to keep a long distance relationship going is a… challenging idea. Any one of the above by itself would’ve been enough to keep the ordinary person occupied, which is what I had last year, but I’ve somehow stumbled into all three at the same time and it’s been an adventure in time management. I had the value of being bored and pursuing interests in new areas gets sacrificed, and at times I’m quite willing to skip out on social events entirely just to give myself a couple of hours to catch up on everything that’s been going on.

When it comes to events of the year, it has been relentless, and with each day that passes I’m more convinced that I need to be more politically engaged. Some of that comes from the frustration of seeing the government navel gazing; some of that comes from the sheer absurdity that is the USA right now. I know a large driving factor is seeing my local representative completely failing to represent me as he happens to be an arch conservative that carries the flag for everything that is wrong with the conservative side of politics in this country (like, every single bone-headed policy. He cheers for Trump completely unnecessarily!). And then I remember everything I’ve already got on my plate, and I wonder what I could realistically do without sacrificing something.

That kind of feeling and motivation seems to tie in with an increased self-awareness and maturity that I didn’t consciously come to, but rather has welled up with time and experience – it is something along the age lines that really starts to become obvious. Where the twenties were about my personal growth and – frankly – somewhat selfish in many measures, it appears the thirty mark being passed does make a difference in how the world feels like it’s impacting my life. A sense of agency appears – that I can, and should, need to do something to make a change, make the place a better one.

And now I suspect I’m rambling. It’s useful to use this platform to explore thoughts and process, but I do occasionally need an editor to go “right mate, wrap it up, you’re wandering in a way that someone outside your head can’t follow.” And so I will.

Though! One more thing before I go, a media endorsement: go watch The Expanse. That’s some damn good scifi, and I’ve been only to happy to escape to that universe for 40 minutes or so at a time.

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