Blog #10

I’m wildly confused. The days are blending together, time is a social construct that feels like a distant memory. I have always found keeping track of time to be a challenge, but I failed to realize how crucial my daily routine was in informing me subconsciously of passing time and the calendar day, and how important having people in my surroundings were to giving me context for how much time has gone by as I perform a given task. A day can feel like a week and a week can feel like a day. I genuinely remember checking my to do list and seeing that I completed the blog for last week. I don't know where my head was when I doubled checked the assignment completion... but now this is the second week I have slipped and thought I completed the blog when I did not. Help. I have lost my mind but this isolation has me feeling like everything is a-okay when its not. Or, on the other extreme, I also find myself feeling that the world is imploding on itself. The reality is I am exiting somewhere in between these two extremes, I am dazed and confused and in need of something to ground me, but I am not so far gone that I can't regain my bearings. I just need to build in some context to my life and my days.

In some ways I feel like I have made a lot of progress in organizing myself, but it's like walking on a treadmill. I am walking forward but I'm not getting any closer to the wall in front of me. I acknowledge that this is a pessimistic analogy and isn't a perfect one in representing the progress I have made adjusting, but in terms of results I am seeing in my academic execution, I feel that it fits my feelings.

I find that my strategy for reducing stress in the past has largely involved changing my environment and dedicating certain locations for certain activities. Having physical boundaries as a starting point has helped me to my sanity as I separated self-care and enjoyments with academics and stress. Now I feel that I have to create that delineation in my mind. I try to find time to spend time with my dog, my cat, with my family, on FaceTime with my friends, but especially familial distractions are hard to regulate. I set up my things and get into a groove working on an assignment, and in walks my family on a rant. Or, bittersweet distractions come from my cat. Kai, my cat, is always antsy in the mornings and entertains himself by wreaking havoc. If anyone remembers that baby crying in the background of our Healthcare lecture a few weeks ago… that was my cat. He screams when he does not get attention. Not only that, sometime she just cries for the hell of it I swear. At his worst he proceeds to try and knock over pictures hanging on the wall, he consistently locks himself in closets, he tries to eat my clothes or the dogs food, and he torments the poor dog by pouncing at his feet. Having Kai to curl up with me at night and even his morning antics (as distracting as they are) are the highlight of my everyday.

Sorry this is late :/