And you may ask yourself

How did I get here?

It's a good question considering all of the changes I've been through in the past year. I've been in my new apartment in a different suburb for three months. That was a major move for me, yet here I am about ninety days later feeling like this place has always been home. My office moved to a new building this summer. My parents moved about twice as far away. I've had a couple friends move out of state.

I worked on getting back in shape. Not perfect shape, mind you, but better shape. I took up knitting and daily blogging. I bailed on following Ohio State football and playing fantasy sports, things I was finding increasingly less enjoyable. I started following the Columbus Blue Jackets. I gave up doing stats for every one of my college's home basketball games. I gave myself permission to feel like I didn't need to see every commercially released film in town to be an informed critic. I got new glasses. I've been looking for a new home church.

All right, so some of those things aren't massive shifts in my daily life, but even the little things have added up. The me of a year ago would still recognize the me of today, although the old me would probably wonder how I survived it all. Honestly, the new me doesn't know.

I've not been resistant to change. Flexibility is an important part of my work. Being able to improvise when things don't go as planned is part of the reason I'm successful at what I do. Nevertheless, anticipating the need to change and flying by the seat of my pants is not how I conduct myself outside of work. I had lived in my old apartment for a long time despite being unhappy there for a significant stretch. I'd been keeping myself busy even though I could have been spending my time better, most notably by slowing down.

I'm still a work in progress. (All of us are, of course, or we should be.) I'm not satisfied with everything, but I press on. Really, that's all I can do. So much is outside of my control, but if I take hold of what is within my power, then hopefully the changes will be for the better.

The funny thing is that aside from the initial pain of mixing things up, eventually life's equilibrium returns and feels the same as it ever was.