What a Summer. 

Something about the poetic justice of experiencing the lowest lows with incredible highs. This time, it was all too personal. A loss on one end is a gain on the other. 

I recall telling myself through most part of last year that perhaps I have a person in my life to teach me more about myself but it's also, in some ways, compensation from the universe in the absence of a desk job. 

Guess, who's got one again? 

A part of me is relieved that I can stop the sporadic job hunt but at the same time, the luxuries that come with being a freelancer are all traded to accommodate travel to a different city, in formals and putting 12 hours of your day, every day, even when your brain is begging you to take a break. 

Then there was that other thing. Grief. It hits you when you least expect it. If the last two weeks were the highest highs and feeling extremely motivated, today just hit me like a brick in my face. Something about the last two days the way they were building up, made me feel like howling and writing, while I could do neither. The grief of losing people comes at you like waves when you're on an island alone. If the waves carry you into the sea, there's no one to rescue you. You're on your own to get out and stand up and make your way to the sand. I'm currently trying my best to hold on to the sand but it's slipping between my palms. All the distractions, presents, and love can't help you if your mind decides to torment you with reminders of life as it once was. 

This has always been the case, something that a character I disliked articulated well; how we don't know we are in the good days until they become the good old days. This sense is carrying like a burden on my shoulders. Is this a good time and if this is it, then why am I reminded of the other good days? 

Someone recently told me that the wheel of life turns for people and perhaps mine is advancing and making a move to an upward slope cause I ended a toxic relationship, closed channels of communication and decided to move ahead, and thus the universe decided it was the right time to make the other move upwards. I don't know if that's the case or that I am going to be burnt out so bad that I will need a whole lot of therapy or for once everything will be a-okay and there will be road blocks but nothing that I can't handle. 

I've been privileged to be able to do what I did for the past two years and several times during the last decade. I'm probably the first generation kid who has a therapist to help me regulate my emotions and help with coping mechanisms for my nervous system to work as best as it can in the given circumstances, I had the luxury to pursue a research degree while making no money and then I had the luxury to be a freelancer for over two years in an economy where businesses shut and people had to find alternative careers. I fully understand and acknowledge that no generation in my family had such luxury of time and space to pursue the things I did and yet, there's a part of me that wonders if the decisions I made in the past and today are all co-relating or am I going to regret them all. 

These past years, I've had more regrets than I could count. Truth be told, the wheel was at the lowest where I reflected on everything I have done for the past 15 years, since the time I started this page. Every single academic, professional and personal thing has been processed multiple times. I've been ruthless to my old self in some places and more kind than ever in a few others. In all, I feel the intentions were largely positive and that the decisions were made as best as they could have been in the given circumstances. 

In these three decades, I find myself being coddled a lot and while that's not a weakness in my case, it's proved to be a good marker of where I need to work. Even if that realization kicked late, I know where I have to push myself today basis the terrible decisions of the past and where to draw a line. I don't know all of it but I know some and hopefully, it'll be a good start to the next decade of learning and growing from it all.