Time of the Month

Stars in July

7.29.22

Freedom shines and rots, overripe
Wearing those watermelon stripes
Don't look up, don't believe the rest
The stars in July are endless

It's been a very long summer, and an even longer July.
(How is that possible? Don't ask me.)

I'm afraid I do have more health updates this month. More friends and family down with COVID, a second surgery for my mom that led to a pretty nasty strep infection. But everything is on the up and up now. And my mom was officially declared cancer free!

So I'd say things have improved health-wise. In terms of mental health... that's another story. With the current state of the world, I don't think I'm the only one. Summer has always been a hard time for me. July in particular, for reasons I am not going to get into here.

Most of the life changing events in my life have happened in the summer, so now I associate summer with things ending. I guess most people have these associations with winter, when the weather is cold and gloomy and the year is ending. It's the opposite for me. Summers are suffocating. In CA, summer was 108° and smoky with frequent power outages. Now in VA, summer means 90% humidity and severe thunderstorms. Either way, it sometimes looks and feels like the world might be ending. It's not, yet.

This has been a summer of goodbyes. My entire lab has turned over in just the last few months, and I'm the only one left now of the original members. As the most senior member, all the responsibility for training and helping the new faces falls on me, in addition to my usual workload. Everyone needs me for something. I am in the beginning stages of burn out. Or maybe the end stages? I haven't had an actual vacation in at least 2 years, maybe longer. And I definitely can't now, I have to write an entire manuscript in the next week and a half to meet a hard deadline.

For those who aren't in the world of academia, it's a little hard to explain why I have 300+ hours of annual leave accumulated but can't take a day off when I actually need it and haven't taken a vacation in literal years. It's just never a "good time".

I will say that writing consistently for the weekly Micro-fiction challenge has been keeping me sane. Although it has added to my workload, it helps a lot to have a creative outlet. Something that's not science to think about. I wish I could be more involved in the contests and activities going on around here. I see some great ones out there. I just can't write at all during the week, sometimes over the weekend either. Even maintaining this monthly blog and one weekly challenge feels like a lot. I haven't even started on this week's prompt yet.

Don't worry, things will settle down eventually. Either that, or my mental health will deteriorate to the point where I actually can't work. Either way, I will be taking a break in the near future.

Here's a nice refreshing glass of iced positivitea just for you:

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
— Michael Altshuler