Today is my off day.

Or one of my off days. As I mentioned earlier, the department is keeping me on as an assistant even though my teaching gigs are up and I'm working a very flexible 10 hours a week.

I like having time to get stuff done. I like having time to relax. There's a lot of stuff to get done, and I like to relax. But sometimes I hate having time to think. I hate having the possibility of wasting time, brain space, and emotional energy absorbed in the perceived complexities of my existence.

I'm not that big of a deal. It's not all about me. I'm almost done with A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by, yes, Don Miller, and as he put it in his book, we're just trees in a story about a forest.

It just doesn't help that the sky is overcast, that my aunt went back to Philly this morning, and that I'm left to inevitably mull over a nearly 5-hour conversation last night. That started at 11 p.m.

Sometimes I wish I could be George W. Bush. I could be the decider. Not do nuance. See things in black and white. Stick to my guns. Go with my gut. Look people in the eye and see into their souls. But instead I'm Barack Obama, pensive, calculating, achingly aware of the complexity and consequence and nuance inherent in every decision I make and every situation I face and nearly paralyzed because of it. It's not as simple a matter as either sending more troops to Afghanistan or deucing out of Afghanistan completely. It's not as simple a matter as either continuing to see someone or completely cutting them out of your life.

Where there is clear black and white, a Rock of Ages, I unashamedly cling to it. I make no excuses. But, try as I might to be Dubya, there are simply too many shades of gray to ignore.

Prayer changes and helps, I know it. It has brought me out of many a pit of pseudo-despair. I guess I'm still learning what it means to be a tree in a story about a forest.