Can I just say, I LOVE that gas is down to $3.11 right now? Seriously, when I was working in Scottsdale, it was up to $3.75 and more, which was just INSANE!

I’m pretty proud of my level of accomplishment for the day–I marked a TON of things off of my to-do list, even though I’m not 100% sure that the cable is actually CONNECTED! I also, obviously, hadn’t calculated for having to make that run to IKEA and the subsequent moving of furniture that that entailed.

When I was talking to my mom tonight, she seemed miffed that I couldn’t say, “I’m ecstatically happy” right now, but I think I’m actually better than that–right now, everything is JUST MELLOW, and when I said that to her, she replied, “Well, honestly, if you were ecstatic, I’d worry that you were going manic again.” I don’t even know if I WAS bipolar at this point. One of the things I learned during my breakdown was that a lot of the behavior that had always been attributed to bipolar in my diagnoses was also characteristic of PTSD. And there is NO doubt that I had THAT!

Still, I refuse to view myself as a victim, nor as a survivor. I said that for several months, and I am LIVING that choice now. Not just in the obvious, but also with regards to my gastric bypass. Yes, there are things that changed my life. Yes, there are things that taught me lessons. Yet I am much more than any label with which someone wants to saddle me. I reject those false judgment values, even if they are POSITIVE judgments, simply because that isn’t who *I* am, nor who I want to be. I have become, in so many ways, the woman I always pretended to be, and then some. Life really doesn’t suck.