Not really bad or ugly but DIFFICULT

Had to make some hard decisions this week.  One of the big ones was about how much I've been trying to get done each week.  Getting up at 5:30am and to bed at 11pm and still not getting the minimums done each day has been taking its toll.  The Colorado Bar Exam.  I need to be able to give the preparation more actual time and more mental energy than I simply can right now. Therefore, I am deferring until February.  Will life be easy then?  Likely not.  But it will surely be better than right now.  So, in February, I will have a laptop to take the exam and I will be fully prepared.  Then I can move forward with my legal career and making a better life for my son, Christopher.

The last difficulty is really just a laughable one.  I ran up Mt. Evans yesterday.  Yup.  It was absolutely grueling.  I felt like quitting in the first quarter mile.  It began at 10,000 feet and ended at 14,000 feet.  It was 14.5 miles long.  At the start is was in the 50s, but by then end it was 20 degrees, 20 mph winds, snow and visibility of about 5-10 feet.  The bits of me that hurt the most were my hands.  I thought I just might lose use of some fingers.  And the altitude was nauseating, disorienting, painful.  

All in all it was entirely insane to have done, but there are some interesting aspects to it.  It was allegorical.  A lot of people quit.  500 started and less than 300 finished.  I could have quit. That would have been logical.  I wasn't really in shape for it (whatever that might entail and mean!)  I wasn't doing well.  I was hurting a lot.  I was having altitude issues.  I was miserably cold.  I questioned my own sanity.  But quit?  I was alone most of the ascent.  I did a lot of talking to myself.  I created a mental and physical system to get through.  I also simply decided that I would not quit.  Why quit?  Defeat and failure on Mt. Evans would have meant little, but allegorically it meant a lot.  It meant more than a lot.  It was good to push my own sense of capability.  Physically, it made no sense.  Mentally, this was something I needed.  Something a lot of people need.  I hope others can achieve it more painlessly, though!