I am thinking that 26 years of formal education can really burn a guy out. I’m like beyond slap-happy. I’m this close to raving lunacy.

It occurred to me that I’m totally fried. Like beyond toasted. Charred. Carbon.

Realizing this was somewhat liberating. I shared my epiphany with my preceptor today. I promised that my mental faculties would probably return once I finally actually finished residency.

The remainder of the month is otherwise going to be an awful struggle.

Today was also the earliest I’ve gotten out of work this week. At 6:50 p.m., I was cruising over the Coronado Bridge, and I decided that I ought to catch the sunset. Monday I think I may have just passed out. Tuesday, the sun was barely out, quickly extinguished by the marine layer as I gazed at the sea from Torrey Pines. Yesterday, the sun didn’t even come out once.

So, as per my routine, I camped out off of Sunset Cliffs. There was a layer of haze sitting on top of the ocean. I am thinking there is a slight possibility that I may have caught a green flash on film the CCD sensors of my digital camera, but I have yet to download the images to iPhoto. We shall see.

For some unaccountable reason, I felt joyful on the drive home. Maybe I just need something as simple as sunlight to make me happy. Then again, I’ve grown to associate sunsets and the sea with redacted, and every time I think of her, I find myself smiling a little.

The trick, however, is to stay firmly anchored in the here-and-now. It’s the hopes and aspirations that always manage to do me in. It isn’t fair for me to have any expectations whatsoever.

Friendship has been offered. This is already a lot. In of itself, it is already a very generous gift.

To use an idiom of our times, it is what it is.

The first order of business is to get my fragmented life into some semblance of order. I’ve lived in this hellpit for four years now and have never managed to arrange it into a livable configuration. I figure this weekend will probably be a good time to at least give it a shot.

Then there are the things I need to fulfill before the end of the year. These may be a little more difficult.

As always, it all about small, non-threatening things. No problem is so big that you can’t run away from it.