It’s a weird place I’m in lately, this general sense of discontent. It’s not with one specific thing and certainly not a person (or even people); it’s not my job or my home or – shockingly – my love life. It’s just this sense of malaise, this nagging stream of ‘ick’ that sits under the surface and makes me a bit grouchier, a bit more irritable. And I don’t like it. I don’t claim to be happy all the time, but this alternative – not a true opposite, per se, more of a distant relation, the cousin that sits at the corner at your family reunion and complains incessantly about the weather – truly sucks.

What confuses me the most is that I’ve made some good – no, great – changes in my life as of late.  New job that challenges and inspires me. New friends that are enhancing my already-pretty-awesome group of pals with outings and encounters and the best tri-tip steak I’ve had in the last 30 years. New(ish) furnishings that make me love being home and provide me a sense of stability that I haven’t had since I moved here. See? Pretty great, eh? But what I’ve found is that I make these fun plans – my evenings are often full with dinners and parties and game-watching and work events and concerts – and as I add them to my calendar in advance I’m excited and can’t wait for the week to arrive. And then it comes to be the day-of, and I find myself resentful that I had planned out my evening, instead wanting to go home and just relax. And then it comes full circle; I find myself at home with zero desire to cook for just me, tired even in anticipation of my early bedtime and evening full of DVR’d shows, and wish I had plans. It’s a lose-lose, this ‘grass is perpetually greener’ syndrome and I’m not really certain how to get out of the rut.

Maybe I need a trip. A mini-vacation. A weekend away to break up the routine of over-commitment. Something spontaneous, something fun, something unlike the un-routine I’ve got going in this here land o’ rut-dom. After all, if you can’t identify what your problems are, it’s not like you’re actually running away…