Driving home after a crazy day of work, you pick up your boyfriend on the way to the gym. The mere fact that you have to pick him up kind of sets you sideways – you like to be direct in your errands, and this stopoff has you crimped. Then you have to swing by FedEx, which always sucks, and your boyfriend’s bought salmon for dinner when what you really wanted was restaurant pizza. And it’s raining, right, and dark, and there’s all sorts of traffic on 1A so you take this back route through Eastie which brings you through Chelsea which gets you very lost. And of course your boyfriend’s GPS just SAVES THE FREAKING DAY, which irks you tremendously.

By the time you get to the gym, you’re in a “throwing-this-goddamn-mimosa-right-across-the-room” mood. So you decide to use the treadmill and really whip yourself calm. Except the treadmill aggravates your shinsplints and is a lot harder than the elliptical. Seriously. Ten agonizing minutes later, you retreat, red-faced and panting, to your usual machine, and sweat out the next half-hour in a fury of self-loathing and despair at your lack of athletic prowess. And the rain. And especially the GPS.

It occurs to me, however, that I used to live my whole LIFE with this kind of angst. Every minute of every day was spent restraining myself from completely freaking out. So, in that respect, one snowball of frustration isn’t so bad after all. And maybe I should just chill out and be grateful that it’s not how it used to be.