Question: What kind of bear is best?

This week might confirm that I have, in fact, aged 12.8 years in the past 11 months.

A little background. Our office is training everyone on a new computer system. This week is my week. This means training from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. beginning today (Monday) through Thursday. But we also still have a paper to put out. So that means Monday through Wednesday, I'm also working my regular shift until at least 11 p.m., and more likely midnight. So that makes for a few 12- or 13-hour days at the office.

Eleven months ago, 12-plus-hour days days at the office not only were not a big deal, they were commonplace. In fact, if I didn't spend about that much time up in my office, I barely knew what to do with myself. Now, as soon as I pass the typical workday point of 9 hours, something flips off in me. I get tired, I feel like I've had a full day of work and have earned the rest of the day off. It's amazing what a few months off that college routine and schedule will do for you.

I took a strange sort of pride in being able to be up and functional for 40 straight hours, or being up and going 20 hours a day for several days in a row during those special times of the year. It makes me a little sad to realize that, even though I have no reason to work like that anymore, that I probably couldn't even if I needed to.

One thing that hasn't changed though is that it still feels good to put in those long hours. Oh, they might be harder on me now than they used to be. But there's something so exhilarating about putting in a long, hard day at work and walking away at night being able to look back on all you were able to accomplish. I often will find myself smiling almost uncontrollably, or humming some happy tune in my head on those nights as I walk from the office to my car to head home. You hear stories about the long-distance runners getting a "runner's high" from a particularly tough run where they had to really exert themselves. This is my runner's high; my drug, if you will.

I guess that's how the rest of life will be. I'll look back every few years and realize that there are things I can't physically handle as well as I could in the past. But I think I'll be happy as long as I can enjoy being able to still push myself to the limit -- even if it's just every once in a while.