Another day of general malaise, but I’m feeling better.

As has been the recent pattern, I woke up late today. And, as has been the general pattern, I woke up with a headache. That being said, I think I’m feeling better.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently – I’ve probably been thinking too much recently – but I feel like I’m regaining comfort with where I am. That being said, I don’t want to trick myself into having adjusted, so I’m not going to continue to emphasize the idea that I’ve adjusted when, in all probability, I haven’t. The way I think of it is that I’m adjusting: I’m remembering what this all feels like (which isn’t great), but I’m also remembering what continuing feels like (which is good).

A major thing to keep in mind is the following: things don’t need to be fine, they don’t need to be good, they don’t need to be bad. Rather, things are. (And, for that matter, they don’t need to be – but until things somehow cease, in which case I won’t really have to concern myself with the state of things, I still don’t have to concern myself with the state of things because they simply are.) I’m trying to think of how this would be said in Russian. I think время идёт is probably the closest equivalent, in terms of feel. There’s no great way to express “things” as concepts rather than as objects (вещи), and there’s no present-tense word for “are” (though есть can do the trick, I think?), so translating this is more of approximating a vibe than going word-for-word. I guess that’s not unique, though: translation is often more about replicating vibes than just doing a word-by-word mapping.

Anyway, that “things are” idea has become something of a mantra. As I wrote that statement, I thought, Hmm, that doesn’t sound like I’m doing great, but I guess I’m not, so I guess that’s fair. Right now, it’s more like, “I am” than “I am [something]”.

As I was running today, I realized that I felt a little better because I’ve remembered some people I kind of know here who have kind of been through worse things than I have. I have no knowledge that they’ve hit the volume I have, though they have (essentially inarguably) hit the magnitude I have. On initial inspection, this feeling of comfort after recalling others’ suffering is not great. I tried to reconcile this, and I think I did: I’m not feeling better because they were sad; I’m feeling better because I’m less island-ed. Which is nice. Islands are cool for vacation, but they’re not great when you want company.

Productivity, still, has been different. Usually I like to think. Of late, I’ve been trying to avoid thinking: I’ve been chilling with friends (even though I ordinarily don’t like chilling), I’ve been watching more sports, and I’ve been reading less and working less since both of those open up opportunities for the mind to wander – I’m trying to avoid mind-wandering right now. I think I’ve still got the time I need to flip a switch and get back to it so that I can finish up the few things I need to finish up.

My avoidance of thinking has largely been successful. It gets harder at night. A few days ago, I stayed up until 7am, partly working, partly writing, partly just sitting. That’s not sustainable, and I realized the error. Then today I slept for a while. I couldn’t figure out why that happened until I remembered that I was probably just tired.

In any case, I’m not entirely sure what I’m trying to forget or not think about, though I of course know the basics. When I do think, my mind doesn’t wander – it dials directly into thoughts that keep me in a rut. I don’t want to stay in this rut, and I think I just need time. That’s what I needed before: time. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it does stop the bleeding. I think things have scabbed over (at least temporarily); I don’t have enough time for the scar to fully develop, but I’m trying to avoid thinking so much that the scab comes off and puts me back where I started.

Now I’m trying to find the point where I can start thinking again. By and large, I like love thinking – as a career path, I basically want to think a lot. Thinking becomes a pain, though, when it brings pain. I keep looping back to tragedies, partly because they really did shape who I am now, and partly because they relate uncomfortably but honestly to what’s happening now.

One thing I haven’t mentioned: I thought my experiences had prepared me for stuff like this, and I thought I’d be OK – not good because that’s impossible, but not totally sent. When I go back to how I felt a few years ago, I think I was in worse shape then. Unfortunately for me, that doesn’t mean I’m good now. It simply means I’m less bad.

Another reason is that there’s a fundamental mismatch. The thing from a few years ago was Irish goodbye after Irish goodbye. The exit was hasty, and man was it soon. I didn’t think a goodbye was coming, and when it came, it came out of nowhere. And this happened, happened, happened, happened. The fast shock of it all was deeply affecting. The injustice was deeply affecting. But the level of “how much I know you” wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, and the rip-off-a-Band-Aid nature of it made something less painful. Although the peak was (maybe?) sharper in some ways, the short range of the time axis perhaps made the grief integral smaller. The scenario now is more different than I realized, though the inevitable outcome is the same. You know it’s coming. The age isn’t a shock, the prognosis was (roughly) known, and there’s still time. But the anticipation is really rough, and the outcome’s going to be quite (euphemistically) unpleasant.

My theory is the following: grief is a function of how well you know the affected person, how surprising the event is, and how unjust the event feels. (Call it a loss function, lol.) For example, a “wow, that person’s really old” end for a non-relative doesn’t feel that bad; a “that person’s end was caused by another person and they were young” end is bad, even if you don’t know the person. As a thought experiment, extend both of these examples in ways that vary the “how much you know them”, the “how did it happen”, and the “how surprising was it”.

Theory-implementation mismatches really get ya. Something can apply to an Irish-goodbye case, but that doesn’t mean it generalizes to a drawn-out goodbye that, yeah, was definitely coming but, still, is terribly unwanted. That’s the thing that’s gotten me the most here.

The impact of the “how surprising was it” is the trickiest to measure, and I’m not even certain that it’s a parameter: it feels like speed could be sharp but fast, while slow could be less sharp but certainly affect your day-to-day for a lot more days as you gear up (and come down). The biggest unknown for me is what the sharpness of the conclusion will be like. My sense is that it could be quite bad because, no matter how much you know that there is an end (even if you really know, “oh yeah, there’s an end”), the actual end could be real tough.

I guess this is reminiscent, in some ways, of nostalgia. The years go, and they go, and they go (жизнь идёт, время идёт), and yeah, I’m class of 20xy, so when 20xy comes, of course I’m graduating. The graduation itself, though, can still bring emotions (even though it can be so antipated – it is literally scheduled – that it really feels like it shouldn’t). And when it’s something much more final than graduation (e.g. seeing friends less frequently vs. seeing friends never again and being unable to ever see them), I guess it tracks that the emotions can be even stronger.