I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me

[hawkwing_lb]

The days after December 25th are doldrum days, of a kind: the still calm sameness of year's ending. Days filled up with thoughts of all the things I haven't done, all the things I'm still to do, and time runs out in a hand of days like sand in the glass.

How time can be still and calm and yet fleeting, I don't know. Yet it is.

2011 has been a strange year. You'd think we'd have more time, but this is all the time we have.

---

The prospect of the new year makes me consider my thesis, and the fact that I still don't know what the hell I'm doing with it. I like learning, but writing it up seems like marking time. I still don't understand half of what I need to know, and the words are scratches in the dark.

The pain is why we do it, as climbers of my acquaintance have been known to say.

Even if I've no idea what I might be able to do afterwards.

---

I discovered today that I am lonely.

It ought to be harder for an introvert to be lonely. You'd think so, or at least I would. But it struck me today how many of the people I care about live so very far away. Most of them, by now. So, dear friends: take care of yourselves, k?

(And maybe some of you will go to WFC Brighton in 2013, and I can look forward to seeing people again? Chance would, as they say, be a fine thing.)

Comments

[etumukutenyak]

I've always understood it that introverts can be lonely -- being introverted doesn't mean you don't need human contacts; it really means that being with other people drains you of energy (although this can be a pleasant ordeal). Extroverts, in comparison, are recharged by being around others, and find being alone to be a drain on their energy. My Ex was an extrovert, and I am a gregarious introvert (and so is the FG). That wasn't the only issue of difference; the cold room/warm room was an important point of contention as well!

Anyway, drifting off-track here. I find this distance and the large body of water between us to be a source of displeasure myself. The other day, I stepped out of the FG's house, to see the world looking like it did in Ireland, with the dramatic landscape, the slant of light, the air itself. Then I broke the spell by getting into my car. ;-)

Taking care of selves here, and you take care of yourself as well!

[hawkwing_lb]

I hope things go well for you.

And thanks.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

You'd think we'd have more time, but this is all the time we have.

...I like, a lot, how that feels in my head. Can I keep it?

Also, I know at least for me? I hit a point, mid-twenties, where being an introvert was not enough to make me not lonely, and then I had to go out and not be so introverted anymore. And it was kind of hard. But then it was really good.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Of course you may keep it. Words are for sharing. :)

I'll bear that it mind. (It doesn't help, of course, that the old compadres are all doing the emigration thing.)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

There were two lines from popular music songs which used to remind me of my thesis. The first was by Paul Weller, I think it was, and it went somewhere along the lines of 'The more I see, the more I learn, the more I learn, the less I understand'. The second one was Enya (I've got a sneaky soft spot for Enya, ever since she did the soundtrack for The Celts in the 1980s. I fear it's what got me into archaeology...). It went as follows: 'it's either this or that way, it's one way or the other, it should be one direction, it could be on reflection, the turn I have just taken, the turn that I was making, I might be just beginning, I might be near the end.'

Oh, God!! It's bringing it all back. Aaarghhhh!!!!!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

It was a long time ago and can't hurt you anymore?

(It's a vast relief, to know Other People felt like this.)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

The memory lingers on, I fear. Just think how good it'll feel when you finish it - like hitting your head repeatedly against a brick wall and then stopping...

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Ouch?

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Ouch.

Small consolation, I know, but my dad's just started corresponding with a lady (aged 75) who has recently completed a Phud in history/theology. She had her viva and got thoroughly ripped apart by the examiners, who complained that there was too much history and not enough theology. She's been asked to do a complete rewrite over the next six months and is very down in the dumps.

Sounds like a case of poor supervision to me....

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

...You fill me with so much hope and joy, I simply cannot adequately express my gratitude. :P

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Think of it as your own personal Odyssey.

And when the fight is fought and won, you'll be part of an exclusive club. It's not the letters after the name that count, it's the fact that you've struggled hard and achieved what so many couldn't possibly even contemplate doing.

As the mother of a musical pupil I once taught once told me, "You don't have to be smart to do a Ph.D. You just have to be a stubborn old bag."

That came at just the right time for me, when I was suffering my own private Twilight of The Soul. The organisation of the dreaded Chapter Five just about sent me to the madhouse. Supervisor #1 had just left to go to another Uni, Supervisor #2 was the Prof. who hated Supervisor #1, and Supervisor #3 was an awfully pleasant lass who chivvied me along nicely. She's the only one of the three I have ever had a drink with at a conference.

Shudder!!! These are terrible memories indeed.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Stubbornness is deeply underrated.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Just look within, and find your inner donkey.

Anyway, I have faith in you. You climb mountains. You'll get there - in the end.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :P

[desperance.livejournal.com]

And maybe some of you will go to WFC Brighton in 2013, and I can look forward to seeing people again?

Us! We will be there!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I can see you!

...I did see you at a P-Con one year, but I didn't want to interrupt the conversation you were having. :)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, what? Fool of a Took Hawkwing! I am always amenable to being interrupted/joined-in-with/whatever. Especially if at bar, which by my memory of P-con pretty much must have been the case.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I shall resolve to do so in future, so. :)