the feeling that free time is scarce is returning, and for now, that's good. the final period of freedom after a long break always contains a fury and a unique kind of desperation, the need to hold slippery increments of time under ones fingernails, first days, then hours, then final meals, last goodbyes. like the december holidays or those awful weeks before enlistment. i say awful - and they were (and these last days kind of are as well) - but these are also wonderful in that everything has become precious again, every idle afternoon, every hyper-protracted lunch, every time i wake up in sunlight and not to the beeping of an alarm clock.

there's little marginal reward in taking long breaks as opposed to short ones - most
everything is unappreciated except the beginning and the end - but really, the fact that i know this doesn't make me feel that i should have done anything differently. maybe i just never learn. or maybe i feel that being completely unproductive is like kicking sand in the face of conventions and norms. or maybe i valued my free time over the last three months more than i think i did, or will in retrospect.

whatever the case may be, i'm excited again. excited that i have to tell someone that we are meeting "next tuesday afternoon" and not "any tuesday afternoon", thrilled at the countdown, that the devalued currency of time suddenly has stock once more.

and next week, on this very page, i will be cursing the fact that it's all gone. we are perverse animals, and, time and again, must be forgiven this fact.