I'm a little fuzzy around the edges this morning. No, I didn't indulge - I wish - I just didn't get home from the office until 9:30 pm. I mostly believe I am getting better not older, but I have definitely lost a considerable degree of resilience to overwork. Or maybe I've just outgrown the youthful delusion of immortality that allows one to tolerate the interminable postponement of personal needs and gratification because You Have Your Whole Life Ahead of You and any day now the hard work will pay off and the good bit will begin.
I finally realize that my life is now and the good bit is encapsulated in sleepy mornings snuggled with my sweetie, drinking in the sweet familiar scent of comfort and love and constancy, marvelling at the beautiful little people we made together and the clutch of tiny hands around my neck and extravagant I love you mommy kisses.
I am still ambitious and curious about the world and compelled to Make A Difference, and I haven't even really lost my driven overachieving personality, but I am as "arrived" as I am going to get with Big Career Goal #1 and I plan to be much choosier about the next thing I set my unconquerable will to. For starters, I resolve to set aside "proving that I am as good as any man" as a remotely useful criteria for valuable and fulfilling life's work. I entered medicine just long enough ago that that was actually a consideration, and while there was plenty of sexism and Old Boys' Club-ism to do battle with, I discovered that, like all external obstacles, it was insignificant in comparison with the limits I put on myself. Clearly, it will be pointless to charge headlong into the Next Big Thing without addressing my self-imposed obstructions and restrictions.
Speaking of dreaming big, I discovered this yesterday while practicing paperwork avoidance: 
(From an article on Adam Jones posted in Making Things - you should really check out the rest of the links to him - just amazing.) Never mind the dead animal up top - look at that lace! Imagine knitting like that - wherever your happy imagination took you.
Then I just had to go googling a bit for handknit couture, and found this via Amelia Raitte:
No limits, indeed!
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