In a lull

[Just a better title for Meh.]

There's a time in your life where you think you will live forever. When 30 is old and 40 is like ancient. When marriage, children, career, health, insurance policy are all grown-up boring discussions and your life (at least mine) is all about walking the dog, rollerblading, and, later in life, climbing, running and all that. And when you do hear about bad things happening it's always in passing and always very very far away. And even when bad things are close, you can still look around you and identify your things, your rocks, your foundation or safety net. Like friends, family, favorite things or hobbies, things and people that you know will be around forever (or for a longer span than let's say, a year).

And then friends move away and NEVER keep in touch (and i mean AT ALL) in this dying age where Internet is available in most corners of this godforsaken earth. And you look around and you can count your friends (local) on at most the fingers of one hand.

And then you hear about somebody your age, that you went to school with, that has developed leukemia and has a very high chance of dying. Like soon. And it's not like other friends that have died about whom you could have said that they had it coming. This is like for real, pure, unasked, unexpected death. And if you don't have the benefit of a belief in heaven there's like nothing left. Fat worms eating your flesh at most.

And then you hear about somebody in the same graduate program that is insane. Certified or soon to be certified. And you look around and you hope that your hobbies and your friends (countable by the fingers of one hand) will keep you sane. And hope that you do not get injured again such that you can keep climbing and running (my elbow hurts! bad! and so does my ankle - must be all the Chinese new year food) because let's face it, these are the things that keep you sane in the absence of family, a real career and in the presence of DOUBT.

And because life as a phd student in a foreign country is one big hill that you need to keep on climbing consistently, you need a lot of Neverquits. And sometimes you just run out of Neverquits and all the shops that sell Neverquits (not to be mistaken with the shops that sell Moreballz) are closed because of .. chinese new year [?] It's that time when there's only one cure:


PS. I just wrote an entire page to justify the buying of [another] pair of shoes. Pfft.