Oofah.

I have been absolutely exhausted for the past week, or thereabouts. It culminated this morning in my somehow sleeping through both of my alarm settings, and a phone call ca. 8:30. Meaning that I missed teaching my class this morning (and the call was the program coordinator going "Where are you? What's up?"). Got in to work late, even. Well, later than is normal on class days.

I bailed on the gym yesterday morning. I've been catching half-hour naps when I get home, before I start dinner (or just after). I've been hitting the sack by 10 PM.

I do have an idea what's going on, though. Last week I signed off on the condo, thus finishing the process which started last December, and marking the final end of my marriage. In essence, I cleaned out the last grit from the 'wound' which has so pained me. Time for the body and mind to really start healing; that demands incredible amounts of energy; that much energy I don't have in full, so I'm conserving it through rest. The serious weather change lately doesn't help, I'm certain.

I'm not usually one to hand-wave about how the mind affects the body (if you want technical details about the neuropeptides and transmitter molecules, sure, I'll give them to you), not that I'm doubting the link. I've just not experienced it so... blatantly, before. Stuff like this makes it glaringly obvious, rather.

Oh, that's what that is.

I've mostly completed the third week at my new job, and I find myself experiencing a curious sensation. Especially in the various meetings the boss requires me to go to.

Almost as if something within my head is waking after a too-long slumber. Uncoiling and stretching its limbs for the first time in a few years. Checking out that all the parts still work, and just maybe thinking about sprinting, just a little.

Oh, yeah, that. It's my brain. You know, that thing that I trained, back in grad school, to such sharpness that it'd cut ideas in half? That tool which can shred a research paper in half an hour, that spots holes in experimental designs in seconds, which cross-references that pile o' knowledge stored in the back to bring up relevant points in discussion. Yeah, that thing.

It got kinda dull and lethargic, working for industry, and then for a succession of bosses that didn't really care what I thought. Also doesn't hurt that I'm back to working within my specific sub-fields.

(C'mon, don't tell me that at least some of you folks out there don't envision some aspect of your mental faculties as an independent critter...)

Dead giveaway moment: when it's my second meeting with this particular research group, and I'm the second most vocal commentator on a given presentation. Hell, I don't even know the guy whose paper I'm bashing... I'm not being vicious, but I'm not pulling any punches, either.