Taking time to bask in joy

I’ve been trying to spend more of my time on things that are meaningful to me, and it’s been working pretty great! But I’ve realized that I need to take some time and not just jump to the next thing. Part of what makes thing fulfilling is that sensation of being full.

I have a tendency to want to be productive and so I need to schedule in enough time to enjoy what I do and take pride in what I accomplish. And journaling is a great way of processing some of this stuff.

Friday morning I had coffee with a friend, and we got to know each other a lot better. We were really vulnerable with each other in ways that men often aren’t, and we really shared some love. I feel really great about that!

This morning I spent several hours creating a prop for the role-playing game I’m running. It was super nerdy and awesome. I wanted to simulate the experience of using a dial-up BBS in 1984, and I ended up running a Commodore 64 emulator on a computer and then using VNC on a Raspberry Pi to display that on an old CRT TV. I wrote a quick-and-dirty BASIC program on the C64. It brought back memories of dialing up the Dayton Freenet on our 300 baud modem and writing programs on the old Commodore back in the day. Remember when the mouse didn’t exist? Remember back when something scrolled off the top of the screen it was gone for good? Amazing. I can’t wait to hand it to my players.

Also, I’ve been volunteering at Marvelous Math Club and it’s a really warm and loving family. It’s not simple or easy. There’s discomfort and vulnerability. But there’s also community and support and mutuality.

After some time of feeling unsure of how to keep growing as a person, I feel good about where I’m going, things I’m trying, and what I’m looking forward to. And I’m starting to take the time to really appreciate that yumminess, too.