The past couple weeks have been something of a stupidly long and sometimes exhausting and pretty much ridiculous emotional roller coaster for me. Things seemed to hit the apex this weekend, and good lord I hope things calm down.

Let’s just go through my emotions in order from Friday night to today, shall we?

Content

Self-conscious

Worried that I’d put myself out there too far, that I was going to end up hurt

Sad

Hungover (Maybe not technically a feeling per se, but I sure as hell felt it)

Amused

Happy

Amorous (This is what dancing does to me)

Really, really fucking pissed

Even more furious than that

Resigned

Exhausted

Hungover again (it was one of those weekends)

Irritated

Bemused

Irritated again

Annoyed

Sick to my stomach worried

Determined

Terrified

Motivated

Nervous

Stressed

Proud

That’s a long ass fucking list, and I can guarantee that I missed some in there. Those were the highlights. And the lowlights. Those were the ones that damn near made me lose my shit on a couple coworkers for various reasons, the ones that worried my friend Miranda to the point where she stayed on Twitter with me for nearly four straight hours. They were what made it impossible to sleep, what made me cry, what made me frustrated with myself for my own damn (impossible to stop) reactions.

I know I’ve written about it before, but I have a lot of emotions at all times. I am an over-analyzer, and that tends to make those bad emotions worse, due to things like my worst-case scenario brain and second-guessing myself and wondering whether they changed their mind (really, really hoping not on that last one).

Emotions can bring me to my knees, wracked in sobs.

They can bring me to the point where I am shaking with anger, clenching my fists and my jaw to prevent myself from lashing out at someone who doesn’t (well, sometimes they do) deserve it.

They can make me strut down a hall with the confidence that not a damn thing in this world could touch my happiness at that point.

Today that’s the type of emotion I felt. That pride (and the heels I am wearing) have me walking tall.

Today I finally got through a huge presentation that went out to nearly fifty of our team’s collaborators. I organized it. I got this pulled together. I worked my ass off on getting a PowerPoint formatted, I made sure every ‘I’ was dotted and ‘T’ was crossed. I collaborated with members of my team to get this put together, and made difficult decisions and got this thing to go off without a hitch. Today I stood in front of that group that included my boss’s boss’s boss, and I felt fucking proud of myself. I am by far the youngest person on my team, and today? Today I made my name known.

Today is also the one year anniversary of the launching of Aerys (which was at the time called G9 Sports). I have poured my soul and my tears and my passion and my frustrations and many a sleepless night into building a site I could be proud of. I have worked really hard to hone my writing skills, to find and create content that wasn’t just a carbon copy of every other Blues site out there. I have learned more about the sport of hockey in the last year than I could ever have imagined. I have made more friends than I can count, built working relationships and personal relationships, and I have found a niche. I nearly had a nervous breakdown with just how much I had taken on at one point, and I learned that sometimes, you have to really know your limits. Mine came when the prospect of running a fourth site just was too much.

Not that long ago at all, I felt a bit lost. Having friends in St Louis had all but ceased to exist, my job was neither fulfilling nor challenging which kept me far from motivated to want to stay, and I felt as though I was floating in a constant state of limbo.

And then it all changed.

Right now I am proud of the life I have built. I am proud of the trials I’ve overcome, the challenges I’ve faced, the funks and depressions and miserable times I have clawed and fought and climbed my way out of. I’m proud to be in a job where my opinion is valued, where I am considered an integral part of the team, where I can let my innate skill-set take me further into my CAREER. I am proud of the hobbies I’ve undertaken, of the things I’ve been able to experience and accomplish through my writing, of the races I’ve been able to complete, of the level of physical fitness I’ve been able to achieve. I am proud to have built solid friendships with one of the most amazing groups of people I know, of just how close we’ve all gotten over the last little while, and of the potential of more to come.

The best really is yet to come.

This is a good feeling.