Pit Stop.

That’s what this post is, a pit stop. The refreshments availed in this case is some mental offloading. Okay, I guess there isn’t really much to this post.

I have been coughing a lot tonight. It’s because I have a cough that’s leftover from when I contracted covid in January earlier this year. It’s dreadful – it starts acting up randomly and won’t leave for hours. There’s really no solution, and no reason as to why it should persist the way it does, but then I suppose that’s true for practically all of the symptoms associated with long covid. Knowing that doesn’t make the experience any less disgusting, though. That’s what I dislike.

My master’s project is in equal parts invigorating and challenging, but these days it’s more frustrating than anything else. Work seems to be slow, and I’ve lost some of my work ethic somehow. It’s strange and unwelcome, but it is mostly saddening if I’m being completely honest.

Another thing I’ve experienced myself struggling with is how I don’t feel very seen sometimes. I don’t know how to describe it because it has never been an issue before I started my master’s. I guess it stems from the fact that I’m a part of a friend group that doesn’t really like me that much and hence, doesn’t value me that much. It’s fine, I’ve made my peace with it. What’s sad is that I’m going to feel the reality of that long after I graduate.

I’m equal parts excited and scared of what’s going to come and how I’m going to do when it happens. I’m excited because I have an amazing thing to look forward to. I’m scared because it’s going to be a completely different experience and I’ll have no safety net to fall back on.

I’m also scared of what the future holds in a different context. A lot of my classmates from my school and undergrad are getting married, and I guess that’s forcing me to think about what adult life is going to look like. I know that my boyfriend right now is what I think my soulmate would be, if those really do exist. I don’t know how to ensure that this knowledge isn’t wasted on me, or us, along the way of us trying to figure our lives out.

Well, I guess that’s enough offloading for a while. I need some sleep, although I’m unsure of how much I’ll get seeing how hot it currently is. The ceiling fans and the open window is doing nothing for me. Meanwhile, my roommate is already sleeping like a log.

Love, Sky x

Careers and Ambitions. (IH+SI Pt. 1)

This post is part of a new series that I’m beginning, which is where I talk about things that are important and which have happened ever since I’ve been gone, which is almost two years. Not only will these contain updates, but I also want to talk about what’s important to me and what I think. Inevitably, the latter will take up a lot of space. I don’t particularly know what to name this series, but I think Important Happenings + Similar Ideas, or IH+SI for short, may be a good start.

Okay, so as the title says, this post is going to be all about my career and ambitions and how those have shaped up ever since I have been gone. I have been reading through my older posts and I realised that I was going through the process of applying to grad school for my master’s, and it’s strange because when I have started writing again this time around, I am once AGAIN applying to grad school – but this time, it’s for my PhD.

This is then a good time to talk about where my life is going careerwise. It has been abundantly clear to me and those around me since I was a little child, that I had big dreams and even bigger ideas of how I would realise them. When I was in fifth grade, I knew with astounding clarity that I wanted to be a doctor, like my father. By the time I was in seventh grade, I knew I wanted to be a neuropsychiatrist. I considered the idea of a neurosurgeon too, but psychiatry just appealed to me that much more. All of this surety continued all the way till I reached eleventh grade, when my life hit somewhat of a roadblock.

My JIA diagnosis came just as my tenth grade board exams got over.

I wrestled with a lot of tough decisions, including what I wanted to do. It was also at that time that I realised that I no longer wanted to go into medicine. Medicine is an applied science. I wanted to study the basic sciences. I wanted to now do research.

I honestly have been obsessed with the nervous system for as long as I can remember. I knew I wanted to study neuroscience by the end of eleventh, but didn’t get a chance to for my undergrad here in India (no real place offering that as a major that was within reach). Then I qualified a really fancy and kind-of-a-big-deal exam in my final year of undergrad, and had a real shot of going to the best place for doing neuroscience in India from a basic science perspective. But guess what? They never extended me an interview invite.

I chose to go on and study the next main goal on my agenda, and did a dual specialisation in biotechnology and bioinformatics after majoring in biotechnology for my undergrad. The tense in the last sentence is not completely correct, since I am still doing my last semester here, but I do think it was the right choice in the long run.

I know it doesn’t make the most sense, whatever I have been saying: why would I blather on and on about medicine and neuroscience only to talk about how I devoted my life up till now to biotech? Trust me when I say that it all comes together in the end. In some or the other way, I come back to neuroscience. Specifically, Alzheimer’s disease. I worked on something related to AD during my undergrad, and I am working on it now as a master’s student. It is something I am intensely passionate about, and would love to devote the rest of my life in understanding it better and contribute to developing better therapeutic strategies for it.

Now, here is where you need to add two and two together: I am interested in understanding the basic science aspect of the disease pathophysiology and progression in a way that allows for the coming together of better translational outcomes that benefits modern medicine and supports strategies that exist today in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. It’s a pretty lofty goal, I admit: but doesn’t it explain perfectly what I’ve wanted all my life? First as a child, and now as a budding scientist? I believe it does.

This semester, I only have my research project and two other papers that only take place about twice a week. The rest of the week is spent on my research. Last semester was a shitshow – I spent a lot of time on my PhD applications, and the stress eating that I indulged in has led to me gaining like 15 pounds or about 7 kg.

It was a brutal time. No one prepares you for how tough life gets from one point to the next. They told us in school that you only need to study till twelfth grade, and that your life is easy sailing after that. Then they said the same for my undergrad. Then my masters. Now? It feels like a scam. I don’t want easy sailing. I want adequate preparation. The thing about having difficult and ambitious career objectives is that you don’t understand what you are getting into when you start. That was me last September. I only applied to schools in the US, because that is the country I wanted to move to for higher education. A lot of my peers applied to all over the world, but I was stubborn. On top of that, I only applied to some of the best American schools for the most competitive field in biology in what has been one of the most competitive applicant pools seen in a while. It was brutal. I only got an invitation to interview at one school. I guess it helped that it was one of my top choices. The sad part is that I have been all but rejected from my other options. The good part? I eventually got accepted at this place for a PhD in Neuroscience that is slated to begin later this year, in the fall. I was sad at first, but it helps to know that you don’t need interviews at every place you apply to – you only need one acceptance at the place you need to go to. It also helped that I only applied to the places I was most committed to. I guess it helps to have the reach/moderate/safety school breakdown to ensure more admits, but I only applied to the creme de la creme of the neuroscience/Alzheimer’s research world and I guess this outcome was expected.

I am supremely pumped to go where I have been admitted, and carry out cutting-edge neurodegenerative research like I have been dreaming of for so long. But it would’ve helped to get more admits. Granted, where I got in is one of the best places to do the kind of research I want to do, but I guess it would’ve lessened the sting. People have choices, you know? I only had the choice of going to grad school this year at this place, or not going at all. I guess that’s what hurts.

I was also the first person to know where they’re going for a PhD in my immediate friend circle. One of my roommates, MJ, and my boyfriend, PM, both got interviewed recently by a place they each applied for. MJ still hasn’t heard back but is hopeful, but PM was waitlisted and informed he most likely won’t be taken off the waitlist. He later found out that he’s at a disadvantage because of a lack of significant research experience, a problem that has affected all of us because of the pandemic. Other candidates were older and more experienced, but his heart still broke and consequently, so did mine. It hurts to see people not getting what they want, especially when they’re close to you and you want the best for them because you know they deserve it. I am hopeful, both for my future but also for my boyfriend and my roommate.

It helps to believe in better things for you. It has what has allowed me to dream bigger and bigger at every stage. It especially helps when you have the kind of background that I did, where I was convinced that I would never amount to anything in life. A chronic illness would do that to you. I am glad I kept going, and I am gladdened by it every single day. My academic trajectory so far proves that I have potential and that I can change the world. Let’s hope I soon do exactly that.

Love,

Sky xoxo

Renewal.

This is odd for multiple reasons, yet if I have any followers left from the time I was actually an avid blogger (or sort of), this might not seem all that out of the ordinary. It’s been a while, WordPress.

Paradoxical Sadness was born out of the desire to shut my best friend up who was going after me incessantly for writing about what I was feeling and going through. I think she was worried I was depressed, and thought it might help. She was right on both counts. She’s mostly always right when it comes to me, which is probably why we’ve been best friends for almost over a decade now.

The realisation that I’m now an adult always takes me by surprise. It’s been a while since I qualified as a non-teen (like three years since I turned 19, to be more precise), but I still feel like the high schooler back in 2015, unsure about my future and what I wanted from life.

I checked my WordPress notifications and discovered that it was my 8 year anniversary like sometime over a month ago, and it was a strange feeling. I’m going to try and talk about it a little bit more, but don’t expect too much from me.

I started this blog to cope with life. At the time, it felt like everything was against me and like I couldn’t win. I still feel like that some days, but I’m glad to report that unlike my teenage self, my adult self knows that she’s capable of a lot more than she thought originally. I’ve done so much more in life since I had last posted, and I’m excited to return to a place where I felt safest once. I made friends here. I poured parts of my soul out here.

This place is important to me. And that’s partially why I don’t want to start a new blog to catalogue this new phase of life I’m currently experiencing. It’s not just because I feel sentimental about the place this blog holds in my head and heart. It’s because no matter where you go and what you achieve, there’s some tiny sadness existing paradoxically in some corner of your heart. And that’s why I write what I do and where I do it .

All my love,

Sky xo

P.S.: I took this picture when I was out for a walk one night. I like the juxtaposition of the lit road with water stains and the darkness of the cloudy night sky.

Father’s day and a lot of pasta.

The title is misleading, because I didn’t make pasta for father’s day – I made a lot of it the day before. I made penne in white sauce, but I’d forgotten why I don’t like the white sauce too much (spoiler: it’s too rich for me). That is how I found myself with a big bowl of pasta that I couldn’t even finish half of. Today, when I looked at it in the fridge, it looked like a full bowl of food that I hadn’t eaten even a little from!

Today, I didn’t make a card for dad, which is very uncharacteristic of me. The reasoning was very simple. I just fell asleep, and I wasn’t feeling well so I didn’t even realise what I did till way later. To make up for it, I surprised dad with a chocolate cake that I baked in the evening! It was very tasty, looked delicious, and I think he enjoyed the surprise. My mom made South Indian for dinner (which is my favorite!), and of course I finished that meal off with a large slice of chocolatey goodness.

I slept in the middle of texting my boyfriend last night (he was typing too slowly and I fell asleep waiting for him to say things), and I woke up several times during the night. As a result, I felt unsatisfied with the kind of sleep I got, even though it was a big step up from the 4 or 5 hours I was getting each night. I woke up relatively early and had breakfast, and then, guess what I did?

That’s right. I went back to bed.

It was not just me this time, though. My dad couldn’t sleep the entire night for some reason, and he also napped for a bit. It was a solar eclipse today, and there are a bunch of religious things that people do or believe in. For example, you can’t cook during the Eclipse??? Anyhow, since there was no major activity going on for anyone, my mother who usually cooks lunch in the afternoon, fell asleep, and my cousin who is working from home, fell asleep too. I woke up in the middle to see what other people were doing, and I peeked from the top of the stairs. Once I saw the varying states of consciousness present amongst the rest of the house, I promptly went back to bed.

Mom didn’t make lunch since it was 3 pm by the time everything was over, and I took a shower (another religious thing) and then reheated the pasta I made yesterday. I took two helpings! It was just as if not more delicious than it had been the day before.

It was a very lazy yet tiring day. I’ve been feeling sleepy since dinner. I think I’m gonna treat myself to some more chocolate cake and then call it a day, I don’t think I can study. This is funny, because I haven’t studied all day! I feel bad about it too, but what can I do?

I’m already thinking of other things to make. I ordered a lot of pasta online (2 kg in total), and all the possibilities that are running through my mind make me salivate, honestly. I’ve also discovered that I freaking love garlic.

That’s all for today.

Love,
Sky xoxo

Math, Game of Thrones, and some introspection.

Mathematics is tough, and as I’m preparing for even more entrance exams (goddamn it, they never fucking end), I’m reminded of why I disliked math in the first place: it was very difficult. I straightaway skipped 12 questions of math just now to solve a question I thought I could actually solve. Watch me get that one wrong, too.

Have you seen Game of Thrones? I’m sure that even if you haven’t, you’ve heard of it: it was probably one of the biggest franchises ever in terms of every parameter or metric you can think of, and I think the last season made history in terms of how many fans tuned in to see how the fantasy epic would finally end. I was one of them, by the way.

I’ve been into the series for a very long time, actually. I read the first book way back, in 2015, and that is also when I saw the first season. I was in tenth grade at the time, but found myself completely enamored by what this series had to offer. I couldn’t continue with either the show or the books once I finished the first bit, because of exams and other engagements, the most important of them being my lack of access to more of it. LOL.

I restarted watching it in 12th grade, and they had the sixth season out by the time I was seeing it, I just didn’t have it on my person. I finished 5 seasons of the show within a fortnight, with school being on in full swing. Can you believe it? I still can’t! I was doing homework, going to classes, and finishing assignments on time and still watching this show! I don’t know how I did it, to be honest.

I had seen the first episode of the sixth season, but had to stop in the middle. I finally saw that and the seventh and the final season when it was being aired at my sister’s, when I went to visit her last summer. It was amazing. My brother in law cooked pizza and we had that deliciousness coupled with coke (the drink lol) to enjoy the finale. Although I can’t say I enjoyed it, my jaw had dropped open very early on in the course of the final episode, and it kept dropping lower as the episode progressed. It was insane! I was so mad! I thought I was going to cry, to be honest.

I made a friend who hadn’t seen it begin watching, and he keeps giving me play by play updates of what’s happening in the show, and I wish I could watch it anew to experience those emotions, too. A lot of it has made me want to read fanfiction, but my search for it has been quite unsuccessful.

I am in awe of myself sometimes. One of those times is right now, where I wrote several words explaining my love for a fictional fantasy series. As the show deviates from what is canon quite a bit, it’s funnier because it’s a little bit like fictionalizing something which was fiction to begin with. I don’t know what I’m trying to explain very well, but I’ve often felt this when things get adapted and then tweaked, even if the modification deviates from the original in just a little bit.

By extension of that metaphor, do we also promote the fictionalization of ourselves? And if that is true, which I’m sure it is, to what extent do we do that? At what point do you step back and go, “Oh, this has to stop, I’m going insane”? Or are we usually too far gone for that epiphany to come to us?

I’ve been wondering about the true meaning of self for quite a while now, which isn’t all that strange if you take into account the kind of days I’ve been having and the emotional turmoil I’ve been putting myself through/suffering from. At times when it feels like peak anxiety has been attained, my thoughts go at a million miles an hour and I’m usually too tightly wound up to function. I can’t pick out one thought from another, and attempting to do the same ends up tiring me greatly. It usually isn’t worth it, either. I find that I can usually snap out of it pretty soon, a day or two, maximum; however, the latest blow seems never ending. It’s been at least, what, 3 or 4 days? I don’t know how to snap out of it and I feel like I’m going through my days in autopilot. I have no handle on what I’m feeling, and it makes me feel worse because I think things would work themselves out if I could pick out what is bothering me one by one and rationally explain to myself why it shouldn’t be as important as it seems to me, in the moment, in my head… but I can’t. Some good piece of evidence to that effect is seen in this very paragraph, or even the previous sentence.

Usual coping mechanisms and trivial distractions fall away at the end of the day, when I’m lying in bed trying to find reason as to why I’m being unproductive and useless despite wishing for the exact opposite. All means of consolation and validation start sounding hollow, and it feels astounding to go through my days being as non-functional as I am being currently.

Yet, I do go on. Something I’ve taught myself very early on in life (that’s a lie, but I’m just twenty, so I guess I qualify to be called a young person) is that whatever happens, happens for the best; god has a plan for us and he won’t want us to be treated unfairly. There is a reason for things to happen the way they do.

This was something that my mother always told me when I was upset about things that seem very trivial to me NOW, that I’m older and relatively wiser, but definitely felt like the end of the world at the time. Although it feels dicey to leave all my faith in God like this, it feels reassuring on days that I just can’t manage to drum up any effort to bother.

Here’s hoping this is a phase, and there are actually good things in store for my future – and not just because my mother says so. Hopefully, tomorrow is a better day.

Love,

Sky xo

Anxiety, and small talk.

Is honestly all I feel lately, is what it feels like. I feel like sitting here and hankering on and on about it is probably not the right way to handle things, so I decided to roughly chalk out a daily schedule for myself. Guess who failed (kind of) there as well?

The good news is that my dad called the institute that had made me wait for ages, and they finally admitted that there was a glitch in their software which is why the confusion happened. They have put up a revised list of candidates shortlisted for the exam now, and I have also received an email with instructions regarding the same. Small victories, am I right?

The elephant in the room is that I’m not doing very well, really. I try to distract myself because that’s the only coping mechanism I have that I don’t get called out on – everything else has either been called unhealthy by other people or labelled as such by my own assessment.

I reconnected with an old friend, and she comes up as VV in some of my older posts. We talked and talked, probably for over an hour straight. She’s actually texting me right now as well, but I’m offline and hence, won’t see her messages until way later. That was probably the highlight of my day. I’ve had the worst anxiety today that has been partly due to the fact that I was going to hear back from a college in the evening, partly due to some other things that I won’t go into (or can’t, really, if we go by semantics). I haven’t heard back from them as they didn’t release the list, citing administrative issues. But I’m still quite worried and won’t rest easy till I’ve got some sort of answer.

I’ve tried studying today, but have failed. I did try for a bit but it turned out to be quite the task, lol. I’m just going to try doing as much as I can for as long as possible, and hope for the best.

There’s not much advancement on the LL front. I do realise that there’s an extreme shift in our friendship dynamic, because we don’t talk about things that really matter and our conversation in total recently is basically just a bunch of small talk slapped together in a half-hearted manner. On one hand, I feel like I should confront her about her behavior, but on the other, I feel like it’s not going to make a difference. I’m really tired of running behind people who are incapable of treating me with the barest minimum amount of basic respect you accord people you care for. I really am. It sounds really dramatic, but it’s simpler than that. I’m tired and I feel mentally drained. If that doesn’t convince you, imagine this: I see at least 2 episodes of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (RHOBH hereafter) on an average per day, now.

There’s so much drama in this show, and although it’s a little superficial of me to enjoy it, I can’t help myself! I’d really just concentrate on other people’s drama (that they went through in the past, the show was made over a decade ago) than my own at the moment.

A quick chit-chatty kind of post, where I talk about a lot and not so much at the same time. I haven’t posted in the past few days because I wasn’t really feeling it and I know I wanted to do it everyday in spite of that, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Hopefully we’re doing better tomorrow.

Love,
Sky xo

Nachos…

…are honestly all I want.

I love them so much, and often go through an entire packet before I’ve realised what I’ve done. I really want like an entire cabinet full of nachos, I think. And chicken tacos. (And also pizza oh my god.)

All this food talk is making me hungry.

I missed posting everyday by less than an hour, but I guess it’s also important to sort of take it easy with yourself when you’re unable to do things. I had a hard night yesterday, I was extremely upset and couldn’t achieve much. I did study for the test but only a little bit. My boyfriend is honestly the sweetest and he cheered me up loads by the time I went to sleep finally (around 4:30 am).

When I woke up, I felt like death. I didn’t want to attend class either, and that is why I fell asleep in the middle of the second lecture and didn’t wake up till 3 hours later. I’m not even sorry, lol.

The rest of the day was pretty much the same. My sister’s graduating from business school, and it’s a huge thing because I was supposed to have graduated myself by now. The plan was to go see her graduate in person, but that is obviously not possible. The University is having a virtual graduation ceremony at 3 am our time, so I’m going to wake up my mom for that (dad is already up, he claims he can’t sleep). I’m pretty upset because I thought I would be with my sister this time of year, but here I haven’t even graduated myself (which was gonna be before her!). I’m not feeling resentful, just really upset. I’m so proud of her and how amazing she is. I just could do with less uncertainty when it comes to my own life, you know? I don’t even know if I’m making much (or any) sense at this point.

I’m still really upset with LL because she acts as if our friendship is intact, when that is very obviously not the case.

What else? In this week, I’m going to hear back from two more places. I really hope it’s good news. I really, really hope so. I might have mentioned it before, but I got shortlisted for the interview round for two places, so that’s good! So far, I’ve got one safety school locked down. Two have shortlisted me for the next round, and I’ll hear back from another two in the coming week. Wow, that’s heavy.

I’ve had a similar day to the kind of night I was having yesterday, only with no crying LOL. I do have a massive headache and I feel like shit, but here’s to hoping that changes soon.

Love,
Sky xo

Adrenaline.

The title is misleading, I’m gonna say that right off the bat. However, I didn’t have a better description for it so I guess this will have to do. I should be continuing the best friend drama that I began recounting in my previous post, but I find myself… indisposed.

Do you know how something will affect you so much that you can think of nothing, hear nothing apart from the blood pounding in your ears? I have a headache from how fast my brain is going, and to be honest a lot of what it is on about is just gibberish.

I’m really upset today, and have been for the entire day, almost. There is almost no way to kind of deal with how I’m feeling, and I think all I can do is try to distract myself and hope that I feel better in time.

I did miss posting day before yesterday, and I didn’t want to do that again today. This is a useless post for the most part, but talking about feeling nothing is also semi important, I think. Let’s hope I feel better tomorrow.

Love,
Sky xo

Heartbreaks and betrayals. (Pt. 1)

I feel like all I do lately is talk about how my heart was broken all over again in a new type of way that I couldn’t believe existed, but it is happening so I must talk about it. I must.

Today we’re talking about LL. I think I might have mentioned her just once or twice on my blog, but she’s a best friend that I made in college and we’ve been inseparable since the second semester of college (quite possibly the first). I’m now in my sixth and final semester.

You know, there are things you do and know when you cultivate deep friendships with people. One thing I did was to try to understand the kind of person she is and tried to encourage her to find her voice and feel valued in a relationship with your friends, because previous friends had always sort of kept her on the backburner. She also frequently gets talked over because she has somewhat of a people pleasing attitude, and would rather keep quiet than voice her dissent or put forth her opinion on the matter.

I’m a person who prides herself on her intelligence, both in school and outside of it. I am quite good at reading people I’m close to, and LL was one of those people. She’s an open book to me. Naturally, I had picked up on the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph and ensured that she never felt like she wasn’t heard. I constantly tried to build her self esteem and self confidence, because I knew that she needed it. I’ve always been there for her, even when she kind of… hasn’t. And I’ve treated her really well. I know that for a fact.

She’s been behaving oddly this past semester. The entire semester, actually. Little things that seem innocuous at the first glance, but are actually not so insignificant as you might think. It’s a little upsetting to me, because it makes me sort of doubt my entire friendship with her and it does break my heart. I’m a sensitive person. I’m very loyal, and I’m honestly a very good friend to all my friends.

The most recent blow was associated with the thesis that we had to write for our research project. Usually, research projects are for MS students, but BS students for my program have a research project that can be done in a group. LL, AJ, and PM are in my friend group at college as well as my group members. PM, who is also my boyfriend, has had a strained relationship with LL for a while now because she harbours resentment for him for dating me. I’m sure of it, but that’s for another time. I do believe that this resentment has crossed over to her friendship with me as well, and I have had a conversation with her about it. Like I said, I will elaborate about this love triangle (sorry for using this phrase) in a letter post, but the important thing is that she’s accused me and PM of taking over the project and being very bossy and domineering which is simply not true and has hurt my feelings majorly.

The day we finally submitted the thesis, she texted PM this huge wall of text talking about how she thinks her contribution to the document is negligible and how the two of us (me and PM) took over the whole thing and made it our project.

She didn’t tell me anything about it.

Last night, I found out that I’ve qualified the entrance for a college and have been shortlisted for the interview round. LL hasn’t. AJ and PM did, too. We are worried about LL because she hasn’t applied to many schools, and this one college was where she really wanted to go. We’ve had conversations with her about her options, but she seems to take what we say with a pinch of salt.

Me and PM conference called AJ because he was sleeping and I wanted to give him some good news for a change. We decided to give it one more try, talking to LL about backup schools because some of them still have their registrations open. AJ told us how LL has been venting to him for weeks about how angry she is.

That makes two people who know what’s up with LL. Let me remind you that I’m her best friend.

She isn’t texting me much, she makes up excuses about why she’s not texting, but she does come online and sees messages so I don’t know who she’s trying to fool. She sees that I’m visibly upset by things that are being directly done by her, and is not enquiring about what’s wrong. Is this how you treat a close friend?

I want to reiterate the point I mentioned above about how I’ve always tried to make her feel seen and heard. She clearly doesn’t care for that, because she’s decided that I’m someone with a dominant personality and that leaves her no space to be who she is.

Furthermore, when she does talk to me, she acts as if we’re still the best of friends. I’m really upset by this behavior because every point she’s raised is one that I have a good counter for, but since she never talked to me about it, she will never hear my side of things. Additionally, I can’t make myself feel guilty because she never talked to me about what was bothering her and I don’t personally feel like I’ve done something I owe an apology for. I don’t think I’m in the wrong.

All the reasons that she has just pile up to make a huge wall of excuses. This is a glass wall, and if I throw stones at it, it is going to break.

I wish there was something nice to say at the end of it, but I honestly feel so resigned. When did best friends start being toxic and harbouring resentment for you in this way?

I need to talk about a lot more things that have happened, but I’m not in the mood to revisit all of that just yet. Maybe two more parts will exist, who knows? For now, I’m going to have a conversation with PM and try to motivate him to study so the guilt that manifests at the prospect of him studying and me wasting time makes me do something productive, too.

Love,
Sky xo

Vivid dreams and lifestyle choices.

I read an article recently which talked about how people have been experiencing some really vivid and intense dreams, that make not a lot of sense during the whole lockdown period. The fact that this was something that was happening to a larger number of people than just being limited to me sounded really good, because the kind of dreams I have… they’re a little difficult to explain.

The article was pretty cool, actually. It said that being removed from the, um, variety (if that’s the right word for it) that one experiences in their day to day life can lead to the mind having to get creative to churn out material for you. Due to these limitations of having to stay confined in one space, being exposed to just your home and family, that can lead to having such dreams. The brain is basically trying to make you feel happier with your given lot, which I think is pretty admirable.

I have always had this weird ability to kind of wake up and remember my dreams with startling detail and clarity, something I thought was super normal until my friends said that it really wasn’t all that common for them. Something else that is kind of weird, is my ability to wake up in the middle of a dream, and just continue from where I left it last. This is again something that is a strange concept, which was pretty much the norm for me, until I was told how this doesn’t happen for anyone much (if at all?).

The fact of the matter is that, I do have crazy dreams. I have a lot of dreams, almost one every time I sleep. I sometimes have very vivid and intense dreams when I take an afternoon nap, which is frequently why I don’t wake up for another… 3-4 hours. Welp.

Coming back to the main topic, my dreams. I have a lot of those, and they’re frequently really entertaining, so I don’t want to stop having them in the middle. This is why I oversleep a lot of the time, even though I do manage to wake up according to a set alarm (out of like 10 alarms, maybe) but can’t make myself properly get up. It’s a real problem, but I think it’s especially worse because I have been facing some trouble with falling asleep lately. My schedule is all out of whack, I go to bed at ungodly hours of the morning, and am forced to wake up really soon (think 4-5 hours on a lucky day) because of that online lecture series I talked about.

I also signed up for something and then promptly forgot about that engagement, so I haven’t been able to get in some shuteye during the afternoon, either. I did get to sleep for like 7 hours last night, so I’m hoping we can get show on the road pretty soon. I’m excited to get my life in order, especially since days of me at home are numbered.

One common theme that is recurring throughout a good number of dreams that I’ve had, is smoking. Smoking is a troubling topic for me. I’m not a smoker myself (I’ve smoked all of twice in my life and it wasn’t an enjoyable for like, half of it), but I do enjoy the smell of the smoke in a limited capacity. I start feeling sick and nauseous after a while, and I realise that any same person would learn from that and not think about doing it again. But the thing is, this nausea kicks in from secondhand smoke too, and I can’t always avoid that.

My dad used to be a heavy smoker for a very long time, but quit cold turkey before I was born. My sister smokes frequently, and I don’t know what I feel about that. Not good things, but… She tries to do it not so much, and I try not to judge or be holier than thou, but she’s my sister and I don’t want her to be having to know such a thing because I think it might be a problem. She also doesn’t live in the same country, so I guess that makes it even more difficult for me to formulate a real opinion about the whole thing, but there you have it. My ex boyfriend also smoked plenty, and I was not on board with that personally. Like I said, it made me feel sick, and I knew even when I wanted to try it for myself but hadn’t yet, that it is not something that I would fall into.

There was this one time where we’d planned to hang out at his place after college got over for me (which was basically code for making out loads), and he smoked earlier that day. And I could actually make out that something was off about the taste of it (what an awkward description, but I really have no other way to say it), but couldn’t pin down what it was exactly. It also made me kind of feel sick, if that makes sense?

I got really upset because he knew I didn’t approve of it, and I was even more upset because we didn’t get to hang out like this very often, and then he goes and does this. It is his life, but he should be a little more considerate. I was not in the mood to make out at all after that, obviously, and insisted to leave to go home. He felt bad about it, but to date I didn’t think he cared all that much about how I felt about it as opposed to missing out on some action.

That’s an upsetting realisation in hindsight, but there you have it. The relationship was an upsetting realisation in hindsight, if I’m being honest. LOL.

Okay, so I wanna smoke because I’m smoking so much in these dreams. I don’t really want to smoke because I don’t like the idea of it, or the taste of it, or how it makes me feel after a significant amount of exposure has been incurred by yours truly.

Anyway, this post went from A to Z real quick. I have a knack for losing my way, I guess. Really quickly, too. I wanted this to be a short post, but it has really built up. Next post, I want to talk about some of the “impulsive” life decisions I’ve taken in the past few days, and what that has been like. I mean, hopefully. I am also really great at not sticking to plans, despite loving planning those out in meticulous detail.

Love,
Sky xo

P.S.: I wanted to take a moment to talk about my boyfriend, who I am (or was before the lockdown began, at least) seeing at the moment. He’s an absolute sweetheart, and is probably the only person in college who knows this blog exists. He was the one who asked me why I hadn’t posted today, bless his heart, so he’s the reason why I didn’t accidentally lose my streak of posting every day!