Slaking the Compulsion

The Compulsion and P.M. aside, I actually slept in until 830am on Sunday.  Granted, there were about four half-consciously bumbled trips to relieve my ever-shrinking bladder, but otherwise an impressively sound sleep.

The Compulsion wins when I am unable to turn off the barage of "what ifs".  If I didn't have a car, I would have had to walk to the transit station at 6am in the pouring rain and black freezing cold while having an attack... and I would not have survived.  If H.B. wasn't also currently stay-at-home-boyfriend, I would not be able to solicit his chauffeuring services on days when I don't think I'll make the bus ride home without an incident... and I would not survive.  The Compulsion doesn't like to let me enjoy these small pleasures, these cosetting habits of which I take advantage, because it thinks that without them I would be lost.  Thanks ever so much, Conscience, for reminding me in such anxious terms that I depend on certain luxuries in order to function.

This weekend is the first that I can report, aside from the bloated pains of having anything in my gut at all, there was no major attack. ....?!! That's right.  The oxycodone bottle sat neglected on the nightstand.  For the first time in 3 months.  Another luxury on which I depended this weekend, without which I would not have been able to put together my journal club presentation, or edit my post-doc's manuscript, or write an already belated letter to my aunt, or put together Halloween gifts for the lab. 

You know something, though?  This weekend was lovely because The Compulsion and P.M. did not win.  It's just not healthy to assess everything you do in life based on how easy you have it while you're doing it.  I've earned my life.  What luxuries it has, I've proven myself capable of functioning without before.  Just because I'm living easy now doesn't mean I've forgotten how to work around obstacles when things are not so pleasant.  In fact -- and hilariously -- I touted that strength in my Statement of Purpose.  Never convinced that I have enough time (when I always make sure I do); never convinced that I'm not taking the easy way out (which usually results in my burning the candle at both ends).  I blame P.M. for revitalizing The Compulsion, but I blame myself for letting it rule over rationale.

There is always time.  There is always warrant for method.