sands of summer.

I had a panic attack last Tuesday. It came out of nowhere at an incredibly inopportune time. Entirely unelicited, all of a sudden I found myself struggling to catch my breath in the back of a cab on my way to a baseball game, no less. So naturally, I got out of the taxi and continued to unfurl my anxiety out on to the sidewalk in downtown Seattle at rush hour. The sirens, screeching vehicles + congestion further exacerbated my hysteria but with the unintended help of pyramid beer + good company, I eventually stopped shaking + hysterically laughing, the usual sequelae that proceeds the initial hysterical crying + suffocation. oy.

It was a ridiculous way to begin my cray week + I spent most of last Wednesday nursing sore ribs and trying to restore strength to remove the elephant of impending doom that was still residing on my chest as I sat through my second eight hour day at school. After spending three consecutive days in class, in which I aced a paper, scored a perfect score on a week-long discussion I facilitated + received an A on a project I presented {there are times in life to be humble, now is not one of them, apparently}, I walked out of my last lecture of the semester Thursday afternoon + immediately called Grams.

Idling at a stop light, recapping the week I was having, a homeless man started dancing next to my window pointing to his shirt that read "NEED SUGAR MAMA." This was about the time in the conversation when I burst out laughing + said, "Grams. I think this is a sign. Life is mocking me. I thought I had problems but this guy thinks he's going to lure in his dream girl with a cardboard sign on the corner of Denny + Dexter"... okay, I think my actual response was, "Seriously, Grams. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried..." but this little omen from the anxiolytic gods...your life is good. you have direction. you'll be just fine... immediately put my i-have-no-idea-what-i'm-doing-with-my-chaotic-circus-esque-life at bay.

And that is when I stumbled upon this rainbow + waterfall combination of amazingness. When a meeting was postponed that left me with an extra twenty minutes in the middle of nowhere East of Seattle, I followed the signs to Snoqualmie Falls + literally felt the elephant lift off my chest as the mist from the falls graced my skin + I stared in awe at a beautiful, dancing rainbow. Yes, this has been a ridiculous ten weeks of working and school full-time mingled in with some 120 hours of clinicals. Throw in socializing, training for a half marathon + an obsession with sunshine and I  basically haven't slept since Valentine's Day... 

...but even sans sleep + the ability to breathe, life is still ridiculously beautiful... and as I finished my first year of grad school today, June rolled in and with it came the sands of summer. =)