I am eating a Siggi’s coconut yogurt for breakfast, in the comfort of my home, in my pajamas, with nowhere to be, and work that I care a lot about to do.Two years ago, I was working 10+ hour brunch shifts at a fashionable Soho cafe, making coffee and cocktails for people like Kelly Ripa and Alexander Skarsgard. And often, the highlight of those shifts was getting to surreptitiously eat a Siggi’s coconut yogurt while I crouched behind the bar and hoped my manager didn’t notice. A tiny piece of decadence, the briefest of pauses in a very hectic world.

Now, a week and a half away from receiving my MSLIS degree, I am still almost overwhelmingly busy. But now it’s a race that I’ve chosen to run, rather than a situation I’m in. The money was better working brunches, and since I’m starting my doctorate in the fall, I probably won’t be making the kind of cash I made there for at least five more years. But I’m happier. I can see the horizon, I have a plan, I feel passionate about what I’m doing. I can eat my yogurt at my desk, rather than under the counter.

I think this was supposed to segue into me telling you that my partner of nearly eight years and I have broken up. It’s been a week, and so far I have been very bad at bringing this subject up in conversation. Thank god for text messages — it doesn’t seem quite so desperate to blurt it out via a text, and then when I see you in person we can jump right into the sympathy or kvetching or impassioned rants about unrelated topics.

I am trying to remember to be grateful for the stability I still have, when two of the biggest things I’ve ever done are coming to their ends. I am trying to be grateful for the path that I have worked so hard to put in front of me, and for the opportunities that have landed in my way by chance, circumstance or my own privileges. I am trying not to be too sentimental, and also trying to accept and love my own sentimentality. I’m just trying to enjoy my fucking yogurt.