The Weight

Don't you love provocative post titles? I could go so many places with "The Weight". In this case, it's both literal and figurative.

I took an examination for a professional certification today (I passed - woot!).

This certification has been hanging over me for nearly a year. I included it in my work goals for 2009. I meant to take the exam in early fall 2009 but between the car drama, ankle trauma and general apathy, I didn't get around to it. It occurred to me in, like, November that there was no way I could get my goal accomplished. Utter fail.

In a minor panic, I spoke to my manager and she, in her utterly laid back way, was fine with me pushing the exam out to early 2010. I applied to take the exam on New Year's Eve - it was important to me that I made some effort during the 2009 calendar year - please note that I was on vacation, in fact on a holiday shutdown, on this date - yes, this is how crazy I am - and once my application was accpeted, on 1/8/2010, I had three months to take the exam. I got around to scheduling the examination about 6 weeks later and secured a testing date just two weeks shy of the three month deadline. I don't know why I stretched it out like that - it's not like I bothered to study - so I should have just scheduled the stupid thing in January. Ugh.

Anyway, as I previously mentioned, this thing has been hanging over me for about a year now but as of this afternoon, at approximately 2:30pm PDT, the weight magically vanished.

For a good hour.

During which I felt positively giddy, honestly - my hands were shaking, to be free of the weight. My mind was clear. My shoulders were light and unburdened. I felt righteous and triumphant.

And then everything else crept in and settled back into place, right onto my shoulders and into my mind, and just like that the weight had returned.

I know that's how these things work but oh, that hour was glorious.

For my sharp eyed readers, you may be thinking to yourself, Jaime, that's a great story about a figurative weight but you promised a literal story, too. Here it is:

Last night as I was falling asleep the radio played, I kid you not, The Band's "The Weight".

This is actually more profound that it seems because I utterly adore The Band and particularly that song. It didn't seem all that important last night but today, it almost seems prophetic.

Oh yeah, can you tell from the first story that I have issues with procrastination? We'll explore that in future posts. If I get around to it... Haha - that's a procrastinator's joke. Come on! It's funny!