Every problem that I thought I had yesterday doesn’t feel like a big deal now. Everything that I was angry about doesn’t feel like a big deal now. I was angry because I didn’t make time for myself or my hobbies. It was like I was living for someone else, running around working for others and not doing anything towards working for myself. I started studying math again. I started tutoring math again. I started talking about math again and in 24 hours, my entire mood changed. I don’t feel hopeless.
When I left my graduate program the times that I did I was scared. I’m still scared, but this time I’m not going to stop. Little by little I will build this habit, the way I’ve built a habit of drinking a gallon of water a day. The way I’ve built the habit of reading 10 pages of nonfiction a day. The way I’ve built the habit of waking up at 2am everyday. It’s just incremental changes. I don’t have to do all-or-nothing. I just am building up the discipline and confidence to continue on. I’m building up the faith and patience to work with myself instead of criticizing and hurting myself. I used to only drink soda. It’s been so long ago that I’ve forgotten about this. I used to never drink water. I remember about 10 years ago I decided “I am not going to drink my calories” and I lost the excess weight around my waist just from discontinuing all the mountain dew and sprite I used to drink. This was before there was a sprite zero or mountain dew zero I think, but it doesn’t matter.
I am afraid to go back because I never developed the habit of studying. I coasted through school without learning how to study, just relying on a strong recall and rote memorization. I’m slowly starting to imagine the life I want, instead of wallowing in a life I don’t like.
So, I’m reading Munkres topology. I’ve never really just sat down with this book, although I perused it in graduate school. I also never took an undergraduate topology course, just sort of dove right into topological manifolds. I don’t think so much about the things I used to think about as a graduate student those years ago, I guess you can call that maturity.
If you look back on my blog you’ll see that I said I gave up my dream of going to graduate school. I also gave up my dream of going to medical school. I decided that neither was worth the effort, but I’m not happy doing this for the rest of my life either and I would love a job with proper medical coverage so that when I do have these terrible flare-ups I have someone to help me, or maybe I can work with the research scientists who want to prevent these flares from happening altogether. I still want to travel the world. I still want to vlog and take pictures and do things.
I guess I haven’t entirely given up.
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