Meeting still on.  Focused on the run, already.  Planning route.

Need to work on pace.  But not overthinking it.  At all.

Taking time to myself here in the writing booth, the other booth actually since one of our IT guys is having his lunch early in the other.  He gets here sometimes before seven he tells me.

The past week, all the places and experiences.  What did it do to me?  How did it change me?  More and more I’m fining old habits being shed, as I’m getting annoyed with them.  Finding it interesting, the New Mike Madigan continues to be newer, renewed, then renewed again like a library book I can’t get enough of…

But this isn’t some glistening self-help meme or GIF where a guy in a turtleneck orders you to unlock your bestest self in five easy steps. No, this is ME— Waking up on a Wednesday or whatever-day realizing I’ve stopped caring about things I used to defend like my life depended on it—like my preference for “good” brands of salsa or jam, or my obsessive need to arrive everywhere exactly ten minutes early. 

I now arrive on time, sometimes even late, and the world keeps spinning, indifferent to my tiny rebellion.

I’ve started noticing how many parts of me were built out of duct tape and fear of disapproval. Those parts are getting loud lately—not to protest their removal, but to mutter something like, “It’s about time, MADIGAN”