And it is a good look.

There are times when I see myself as Jonathan sees me, and I think that maybe, just maybe, I'm doing okay after all.

This was one of those moments.

Yesterday I learned that I don't keep a journal, certainly not a diary. I keep a logbook.

I'll keep calling it a journal, though.

Isn't it just the ugliest thing? And, yet, it's great for me.

I used to carry around one notebook for work, as work owned the data in the notebook, they paid for that intellectual effort, and I didn't want my personal notes going into the work archive.

I'd carry around another notebook for ideas, where I'd write down 10 of X, where X was chapters of books I'd like to write (or at least see in existence), ideas for Scalzi story plots, ideas of things I'd like to see exist, or some other 10 of X whatever.

I'd also carry around the notebook that listed the tasks I wanted to do that day. I'd generate a new list every morning of the 6 hours of planned items I wanted to do that day, knowing that planning for six hours means ten hours of actual work. I'd cross off, carry over, remove items from that list. Finishing that giant list of things at the end of one of those notebooks was soooo satisfying.

And then there was the logbook I'd carry around, keeping notes of things I did, people I talked with, ideas I had, essentially a commonplace book.

At some point fairly recently, I decided carrying around four (actually more, but let's ignore those few others) notebooks was excessive. No, let's be real here, it wasn't a decision per se. In reality, I realized all these notebooks wouldn't all fit into my new, smaller backpack. So, I merged all of the books into one, except the work notebook. That will always be separate.

So, now I have one giant book with the major things I've done during the day, my Stoic reflections, my daily to-do list, my daily schedule for the day, my 10 of X idea list, my weekly incremental task list movement towards my life goals, my life goals, all that stuff.

This book is completely useless to anyone but me, and that is just fine.

It works for me.

"I noticed your website hodsden.org runs a lot of social campaigns which I’m sure you must be tracking."

You aren't particularly observant, are you?

*delete*

I did it.

I m----- f---ing did it.

I ran a fucking mile.

Not a 5k. Not a half marathon. Not a 6:30 mile that I wrote down in my 2018 goals, to run by the end of the year. I ran a mile.

One. Fucking. Mile.

And it was the hardest mile I might have ever run.

I have been trying for twenty-four fucking days to run that mile. I've managed a quarter mile. I've walked many, many miles. I haven't been able to run that mile until today.

I ran that fucking mile today. I ran it.

I, who used to be able to play ultimate all day and have teammates comment, "I didn't know you could get tired," couldn't run that mile. I, who used to be able to run the Wildflower 10k without any additional training, couldn't run that mile. I, who could head out and run a 5k in just under 30 minutes without any prep, couldn't run that mile.

Depression is a horrible thing. It steals away more than just one's motivation. It steals your life, your future, and your present. That fucking Dark steals everything, and you don't even notice the loss until you've lost pretty much everything.

I was reading Patrick Rhone's /now page, wandering over to Derek Sivers /now page, and thought, well, I doubt anyone really cares what I'm doing now, but I like the idea of a /now page, so I started to create one.

And realized, what I wanted to be doing right now was to run that fucking mile.

And I did.

I ran that fucking mile. It was slow and I don't fucking care. I ran that fucking mile. I ran that arbitrary distance. I can cross that task off my to-do list for the first time in twenty-four days.

I ran a mile.