Saturday, 12.16.2017 - 10:28 am.
Yesterday, I was hyper-aware of how our decisions can dramatically alter where we are at a given time. I was supposed to fly to Houston yesterday. But instead of catching a train to the airport before dawn, Andrew and I were fucking. Instead of getting on a plane, I was watching BBC Breakfast while having breakfast. Instead of flying to see my family, I was collecting data in a testing room. Instead of getting off a plane on the other side of the ocean, I was watching the new Star Wars movie and going for pizza with Andrew and a friend from the Psych department and his wife. It was a really good day.
I was happy, relieved, satisfied with my decision of staying. There's always a bit of heartbreak about not seeing my parents and siblings yet (I'll see most of them in January), but I cannot see myself not on the verge of tears of guilt if I had stuck to that plan and left Andrew behind. We're both happy to be together, our christmas tree is filling up with gifts, and we're looking forward to a couple of restful weeks.
Finally, some vacations. I could still go to work to my office next week if I wanted to. I don't want to. I will get some work done, but I need to recover from this week, that felt so long and demanding. It was rewarding, though, and it included the Psych department's Christmas party on Thursday night, which was a lot of fun.
Today we also a have a Christmas party, Andrew and I, hosted by the Chilean community in the city, and tomorrow he and I are going to London so he can vote in his country's elections at the embassy.We've both been twice in London, on our own, on a bit of a rush. I'm going so now we can do some sightseeing together after he votes.
Also, I can't wait to have time to work on my Simeon comics. I never check the stats of the website because they make me sigh in lonely and painful disappointment, like a while ago when I had to check something else and looked at the disheartening numbers. But attention is not what got me going with the cartoons in the first place, for better or for worse. I will continue working on them, for, as Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes) says, I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.
Next month, the winner of the novel contest I entered will be announced. Speaking of disappointment, I do fantasize about winning. It would be cool, and it would be cooler to stand at the Psych department PhD conference in five months, to talk about my research in fiction with such an accolade behind me. A woman can dream, I guess, so let me dream that I win. After the winner of that contest is announced, though, I'm off to submit to another contest, or maybe I should just send the manuscript to a small publisher and hope they won't charge me if they decide to publish it. I'm torn between loving what I wrote and realizing it's useless and irrelevant (to people who are not me).
Anyway! I'm happy and grateful, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming weeks. And after the holidays there comes my trip to see my family so I am very much looking forward to a month of -hopefully mostly- good times.
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