I really enjoyed writing last week’s blog. And it came at just the right time. I began the new year with a grand cleaning and organizing project around the apartment. I’d gone through every room, touched practically everything and pulled out and donated miscellaneous and sundry things. After I’d finished up I sat down in my organized office to work on the book I’ve started about Ken, sharing stories from our life together and the lessons he taught and the joys he brought. Turns out, I was being too ambitious. I fell into a funk for the first few days of 2012 and it took me a while to figure out I’d done it to myself. It had been too much and I paid a very sad price for it–but have learned from it.

I stumbled around for a day or two until I was sitting in front of my computer and looking at ideas I had for the blog. I’d started writing the piece from last week in October, but I’d put it away and forgot about it. Just reading through it made me giggle–not from my writing, but from reliving the experiences in my head. I was drawn to work on it and after being so glum for the past few days, I took pauses during my work session to notice how happy I felt–even smiling. I felt it as I was writing. I was doing something that was moving me in the right direction. And it felt so good…and productive in a very important way.

Friday night I came across a DVD of some shows I was in while training at Second City back in the late 90s. That was another time in my life where I can definitely say I was doing the exact right thing in the right place at the right time. I met lifelong friends there and the shared experience of attending classes at the venerable Second City Conservatory was a mind blowing and unforgettable one. Watching the performances and recalling the fearlessness of the era filled me with improvisor’s euphoria. I was IM’ing with another alum Tina about how hard we rocked it (wether we did or not). Still relishing the euphoria, I asked if she wanted to go to our favorite Boystown bar and throw back a few before finding someplace to dance. And indeed we did. We partied like it was 1998 and it was very fitting. I haven’t been out on the town until 2 am for a very long time. It was a great battery recharge and reminder that–again–I was in the right place doing the right thing.

As the days pass I feel writing’s importance in my life growing even greater than it has been since I was 13 and started writing my first stories. I got out of the house for a bit yesterday and walked to a coffee shop nearby in Lincoln Square to work on my essay class assignment and to fulfill my non-work socialization for the week. It was so lovely. I can usually talk myself out of leaving the house to write when I can do it at home, but I knew it would be good time and didn’t stop to talk myself out of it. While sitting in the front window, my friend Beth and her little boy Ian passed by and we talked for a moment or two on either side of the window. That never happens to me, and was an awesome surprise. I love the “neighborhoodiness” of Chicago.

And I like feeling that I’m in the right place and moving in the right direction.