saved by grace

Amazing. Among the phone calls I didn't expect to get today, this one was near the top of the list.

A few months ago I hurt a friend of mine pretty badly, and he in turn said some pretty hurtful things to and about me. (How hurtful? Well, a month later the nightmares had pretty much stopped.) Once he'd gotten all the bile out of his system I thought I was never going to hear from him again (except for the little part of me that kept tensing up in expectation of finding him on my doorstep with a chainsaw). So today he called me up, seemingly at random, to apologize for what he said. We actually ended up having a civilized chat. It remains to be seen whether we'll get to be friends again, but to know that he's moved on is a huge relief to me.

After I got off the phone with him, I went to do errands for an hour or so, to enjoy the sunshine and to stop shaking.

And this morning (...was it really only this morning? it seems like about ten thousand years ago) I finally showed my supervisor the stuff that I've been slaving over recently, in spite of the fact that it still seems to me to be a steaming pile of dog poo. He didn't laugh at me; in fact, he seemed to be impressed by what I've gotten out of the data so far. Huh.

The rest of the week is going to be grey and rainy and miserable, but today the sun is shining and the trees are gaudy. And I have parties and recitals to plan, and fewer people who hate me than I believed, and it's even possible that I may actually finish this disertation someday.