Howdo bunnies! →[More:]Just poking in to say hi and thanks for the texted, mailed and posted Valentines [you know who you are!] Bunnies, as always, know how to make a gal feel super special. I'm a bit bummed that I wasn't able to return the sentiments in kind, though I did have the grandest of ambitions at one point and was full of the fondest of thoughts for all of you.... Instead, I can see, I'll have to be stealthy and sneak Frisbee-tude on you to make up for it in the coming days.

Due, however, to a new job and an insane schedule [24 shifts in 13 days, with nary a day of rest], I've been even more out of the proverbial loop than usual. The upside of this craziness being that it matches the frame of my goal of, at last, paying off my student loans in their entirety and being debt free for the first time in 20 years. An impending reality that leaves me equally exhilarated and terrified.

From the day that I signed my first of several student loans, not a day has gone by that I haven't wanted that debt gone, railed against it, cursed it, lost sleep over it - though not too often, resented it...and ultimately became comfortable with it. But mostly resented it, I think. Though happy with the education that I've received in exchange, this debt has been something that has defined nearly every significant, and many insignificant, decisions I've made for the last 2 decades. Where I could live; what I could do [vacation? ha, surely, you jest!]; when I could take time off [never], what I could buy, how many jobs I'd need to not only make the payments, but also get ahead and have money to play with as well [an idea which brilliantly backfired as when one works 14 - 16 hours a day, six days a week, there is precious little time or energy left over for socializing.]

Fast forward to today...same as it ever was, to an extent. At 37, 13 hour days of running up and down two or three flights of stairs for days and nights on end, leaves precious little energy for anything else. The money's great, but I sleepily answer my phone right now by urgently calling out, "Pick up on table 102, please!!" to be met with laughter and yet another observation that I'm working way too much.

BUT! Now, I'm looking at less than $6K to go instead of the back breaking $60K + it once was. The biggest challenge I've faced is poised to fall away. The end of an era, so to speak, is in sight. What is not lost on me is that this very thing that I have yearned for in the deepest dark of night: a sense of freedom, a reprieve from constraints, a clean slate...all of this is visible on the horizon and in some moments, it feels as though it's the last thing I'm equipped for.