In like a Lion, Out like a Lamb (that was mauled by the lion)

That may not be the exact saying, but I find it very appropriate for the month of March. I am so glad to see it finally behind me. How glad? Let me demonstrate in pictures. This first one shows the lion as naïve and unaware of the mountain of work that loomed in the distance. I was full of energy and ready to take on my new job responsibilities. Silly, lion.

Then came my own version of March Madness. I think my mail man hates me. I have become strangely forgetful to go and pick up my mail on any sort of regular basis. Now I find it waded up into interesting shapes. Nothing resembling origami, more along the lines of wad-my maggie or crumple-bill. It doesn’t have the same attention to detail that origami requires. Still, this crude, yet effective way of folding paper is certainly effective in getting my attention. It was during this period that I definitely felt the weight of the world on me. It was a never ending cycle of early mornings, late nights, hours of conference calls and a less than graceful decline into “comfy clothes” that looked strangely like the ones I wore to bed. The picture really doesn’t do the time period justice, but there was no way I was going to post a picture sporting one of the many “hair sculptures” I’ve been sporting the last 2 weeks.

Finally, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. It’s called April. With March behind me, so is a very ugly deadline. Oh, I know that the work is still there, but I am feeling much better about dealing with what remains. So much so that I went and did some thing crazy this morning. I got a massage. I have to tell you, I am not a massage person. I think I was born tense and it has just gotten worse with age. Being the overachiever I am I wasn’t sure how to feel when the masseuse told me I was a “spectacular mess” of knots. All the years of bad posture, laptop bags, and general hunching over computer screens is catching up with me. Since the last thing I want is to end up looking like Quasimodo, I have to make some changes. Tomorrow. For tonight I am going to another birthday party.

I’ll have more details about how that all went later. The thing to know now is that my stress is coming back to this side of manageable and I think I am going to be sleeping a lot better. Maybe it will look something like this? Although probably without the lipstick.