i concentrate on you

I seem to have entered a curious new phase of my life. I am more self-absorbed, self-centered, self-obsessed than I've ever been before. It's really quite a strange sensation, and I'm not really sure how it came about. Suddenly, my "How are you"s seem less sincere to my ears; it's as though I'm less attached to my surroundings by half, and my needs are paramount. When did this happen? It's not as if I'm any busier or stressed than usual -- the lab work is progressing well, and now that my thesis committee has freed me from my cloning albatross-from-hell, and I have a tentative plan for the rest of the year that involves finishing up, writing, graduating, and teaching part-time, I'm actually probably less stressed than I've been in quite a while. Perhaps this is the feeling of a promise of liberation, the approach of an achieved goal, the transition from one sort of life to another. It's difficult to articulate, like trying to describe the awareness that suddenly descends on one as winter yields to spring: the air smells different, the feeling of the breeze as it brushes your skin has changed. (I'm even finding myself translating that last sentence from French into English as I write it.)

I'm now consumed by a desire to beautify my home. I've been seized by a need to read a slew of books and write those three or four different stories that have been clamoring for my time and attention for ages. I want to throw a dinner party. I've even done some cleaning of my lab desk (though I somewhat regret giving up on my little how-much-dust-can-that-CD-accumulate experiment). I don't feel so guilty putting on my headphones at work to drown out the chaos of the lab. I'm not really sure what all this means, if I'm just emerging from the fog of graduate student existence, or if I just need a vacation. But it is strange.