What I have been up to the past three months

[edit: clarified a statement]

The past three months of my life have been quite the whirlwind of events. It all started with PyCon in early/mid March. I flew out to Chicago with a cold. Stayed in town for over a week. It was great fun, but exhausting as always. This was the first time I ever had to give more than a single talk (I gave three). Plus I was sprint coach which made me point man for any new people working with the core developers.

After getting home I immediately jumped into preparing for AOSD. Since I had a presentation to give I spent my single week home just working.

And after that week working I flew to Brussels. First time in mainland Europe. First time I traveled alone to a foreign country I had never been to (well, sort of alone; ran into people I knew on the flight over, knew people at the conference, and I had a roommate for part of the time). But while I was there my 2.5 year relationship ended. While dealing with the conference and the exhaustion of travel, I had some emotional stress to deal with. Luckily I was able to distract myself with tourism of Brussels and Ghent.

But then I had to go home. In early April I returned to Vancouver and had to face up to the fact that I was no longer with Meesh. That was when the panic kicked in. I started to look for a place to move to. I had been lucky in my life in that I had never needed to hunt for an apartment before. Before a roommate found the possible places to live and I just provided feedback or made the call. The prospect of having to hunt for an apartment, especially in Vancouver's housing market, scared the crap out of me. I knew if I was not happy at home I would feel miserable and just end up holing myself up; not what you need when the place you live is a contributor to your misery.

Since my hunt began mid-April, my choices were not great. I was getting to pick through the left-overs from the beginning of the month. Unfortunately I didn't realize that initially, so I was panicking over what my selection was. Luckily I calmed down about finding a reasonable place immediately, although that didn't alleviate the worry that I would overlook a mediocre place now and end up stuck with a subpar place when I started to look May 1. But I rationalized that while the competition would be thicker around the beginning of the month, there would be more selection. Plus lots of students would be leaving Vancouver by June 1 since graduation was over in May, opening up the rental market.

And while I was panicking about housing I was freaking out over what my life would be like post-Meesh. Remember I met Meesh within my first two weeks in Vancouver and we started dating within the first two months. Up to now my life in Vancouver has been my life with Meesh. With her to be no longer being a part of my daily life, I began to worry about what my life would be like. Would I revert to how I used to be, sitting at home watching movies and keeping to myself? What can I do get out more; find a place in a nice location that is near friends (which just added to my stress of finding a nice place in a good location)?

I eventually calmed down after I realized that I would just have to make myself being social. Getting involved with the right activities would keep me busy on certain nights of the week (e.g., Ultimate Frisbee keeps me occupied Monday and Friday night). Other nights I would see friends or spend it by myself relaxing. It seems conceivable I could keep myself occupied without walling myself off in my apartment.

All of this was happening in the second half of April. Finding my apartment as quickly as I did was a great relief in terms of the house hunting. But my stress for May turned to different things. I had three things happening at the end of the month: my paper submission to a conference was due, I would be moving, and Python 3.0 would be reaching beta with a major piece of work that I was in charge of yet to get integrated. So I had three deadlines all due within three days of each other.

And I still worried about Meesh. We lived together until we both moved out on May 31. But living together caused me to continue to worry about how she was doing, etc. I was constantly worried something would happen and she wouldn't get moved out. And being Meesh's best friend in town meant that she and I talked about stuff. So I still had the emotional investment of her boyfriend, but without the perks or same level of caring. And this is not to say I blame her for causing my stress as I was the one having trouble disassociating.

And of course life transpired to stretch my stress out as long as possible. My paper deadline was extended a week. The Python deadline was also extended a week. And before either extended deadline came due I flew out to my mother to help her move, which is always a stressful event since neither of us enjoy moving.

But now I am home, relaxing in my apartment. The bedroom is mostly unpacked (still need to organize the closet) as is the kitchen. I still need to figure out the layout of the living room before I make a trip to IKEA to buy furniture. But I know everything will be okay.