The best thing about a post-grad education is the breaks, for sure. I hope to shape my life at some point in the future where I can balance month-long breaks and productivity, but I don’t see that happening soon. I foresee 5 vacation days a year. Anyway, aside from a biostats final one week into my winter holiday, I had one week in New Orleans, one week in Tallahassee, 5 days in the Carolinas, and one more week in Tallahassee where I spent a night at the beach. Having a break also allows me to continue living in a deluded fantasy where I live life in various “chapters”. As my friend Kate told me last week in a comedic and earnest phone call last where she was consoling me, I tend to make my life “beautifully tragic”. That, of course, in an insult because it implies delusions of grandeur and also hints that I am melodramatic. But, fuck it, it gives life more meaning.

So, within this chapter, it started horribly. And through disgusting bouts of trauma and depression I feel people can shed skins and become different and new people. I really believe that, and I think it’s beautiful that every 7 years the atoms within our bodies are essentially replaced and we are physically completely different people. But in more basic terms, this break taught me that just seeing true friends and family, be it for 2 hours (ohai Erika) or weeks (ohai family) is the fuel needed to keep going, especially when the last thing you want to do is wake up and go through the responsibilities of living. I’m headed back to New Orleans for the last semester of Grad School and will surely write more delusional chapters in my head. I suggest you do the same.

Thanks to everyone also for allowing me to write whilst sad. It’s a risky thing to do for sure, but for the random friends who still read my blog and who reached out with texts and gchats and phone calls, it really meant a lot.

K off for a drive. Heart yall!