Sometimes my job drives me completely around the bend, and one thing follows another so quickly I barely have time to catch my breath. I watch as things I intended to do yesterday slip lower and lower on my to-do list, supplanted by new and urgent crises, and I feel helpless and hopeless and wonder how I’ll get through another day.

We do so many different research projects, and so often an individual set of results is so frustrating to interpret, that I forget they’re all just puzzle pieces. And then every once in a while there’s a good day, or even just one good discussion, when people who’ve been huddled over their own puzzle pieces in separate offices get together and realize their individual pieces fit together and make sense of each other in an unexpected and fascinating way.

I was looking forward to this weekend to having a couple of days where I didn’t have to think about work at all. But after that one really good discussion today, I’m excited and energized all over again about the work we’re doing. My brain is buzzing with ideas for additional ways to interpret the data, and what steps we could take next, and how all of it might one day lead to a real practical way to help people with a serious disorder. It’s an incredibly cool feeling, and one I had temporarily forgotten I could feel.

So here’s hoping if I write it down, I won’t lose hold of it again. Or at least, if I do, I’ll be able to look at it the next time I’m feeling crushed by the day-to-day drudgery, to remember there’s a bigger picture that’s worth every bit of it.