This is one of those stories about human nature and personality that lacks a tidy ending or an easy moral. Perhaps that's the difference between real life and fairy tales; in real life, you don't get to turn the final page to see the theme of the story and answer the questions.

In real life, you get the questions as you go along, and you answer as best you're able with the information you have at the time.

I stopped going to the gym around the time I started my current job. I worked a lot of overtime, especially in the first six months, and I started promising myself that when life got a bit easier, and I wasn't so mentally exhausted, I'd make time. I didn't expect eighteen months to pass before I finally hit that point; me, who was so religious about going to the gym every day.

Given that several of my friends grew up in northeast Arkansas, I would make a yearly Christmas-break pilgrimage to visit them and their families. My general rule: see as many people as possible, cause as little fuss as possible, and stay no more than two nights at any one house. Even under those circumstances, I could easily be gone for a week.

In the years that have passed, I've managed to forget all but the most amusing—or embarrassing—moments that occurred during those trips. I distinctly remember the drives Monica and I made back and forth to Paragould, and my complete and utter inability to use my normally-excellent poker face against Matthew. Matthew, of course, beat me senseless at poker and made me laugh the entire time.

(Luckily for me, I know Matthew well enough to know better than to play poker against him for money. Ever.)