My one enduring memory of my father was a discussion we had when I was 18. I was about to go away for three years of vocational training in hotel management and catering when he said that once I was done, I would have to help support my three younger brothers as he would be unable to do so on his own.

That anecdote encapsulates the nature of my relationship with my father. It centred around what he could, or rather could not, do for me. Ours was never a close relationship. We were civil to each other but we were never friends. In all my adult years, we barely contacted one another, let alone meet face to face. Ours was a tie bound by blood alone.

—

Today, my brothers and I did something that resided in the grey area of legality. We decided to stop supplying my father with medication that was keeping his body alive. Only the ventilator that kept him breathing was to be maintained. The attending doctor accepted our decision as if it was the most natural thing on earth. We had all, including the doctor, jointly signed my father’s death warrant.

Immediately after our discussion, they ceased medicating my father and I gave him a hug - an act that I had refrained from doing before as I was down with the flu - and promptly ran out of the ward in streams of tears. I found myself a bench outside the hospital and sat there crying to a depressing playlist on my iPod. It started to rain lightly.

All it took was 45 minutes. Someone came out to tell me that my father had passed away. He was 62. I couldn’t get up from the bench. It had stopped raininng. The sky became clear and the sun shone through. It was beautiful.

Posted on October 15th, 2008 by jl
Filed under: Life! | 5 Comments »

I feel as if I’m reaching a breaking point.

As Matt characterised the state of our beings, I am like an elastic band that has had all the stretch taken out of me.

The sheer repetitiveness and unending nature of this PhD exercise are killing me. There are very few intermediate goals with tangible results. Even the chapters that I write are but mere drafts. Nothing is complete, nothing is final, until the thesis is submitted - a point in time that would probably mark four years since I first began on this trajectory. That’s four years of this repetitive, somewhat monotonous, seemingly endless mental torture.

It’s partially the length of the requisite document that makes it oh so very hard… It’s one thing churning out 30,000 words for my masters thesis but 100,000 words for the PhD is so very much more… not only is there just more quantity involved but the depth and quality of the argument that is expected is also so much more. The bar is just so much higher at this level…

I wasn’t naive. I knew it was going to be hard… I just didn’t know it was going to be *this* hard.

Meanwhile, the boyfriend has gone away on a long, almost nine week holiday. He has been away for five weeks now. I miss him terribly, and it isn’t getting any easier with the passing of time. There’s a constant dull ache at the pit of my heart that pines for him, a yearning is most acute at the end of the day, as I lay in bed waiting for sleep to take over me, with nothing left to distract my mind. I miss him ever so much and wished that he was closer…

It is all doing my head in right now.

Posted on July 27th, 2008 by jl
Filed under: Life!, work | No Comments »

My life is driven by, and built around, fear at the moment.

There have been many a moment and days where I literally can’t work because I am paralysed by fear. I sit at my desk with my hands under my thighs. My body is catatonic with absolute fear of never ever being able to complete this humongous task ahead of me in the time that I am allotted… The work that is required for this thesis is immense and on more than one occasion I have seriously questioned how realistic it is to expect the work to be completed in the time that is available… Confronted by the mountain of work ahead of me, I literally stop in my steps, filled with dread of the effort and energy required…

And then there are moments where I am so scared shitless that I actually put myself to work… so much so that I don’t actually stop working. I become too afraid of the consequences to stop work… So I end up pulling cycles of all-nighters followed by whole days where I sleep off the exhaustion. The thing is, at the end of these long sleeps, the fear that paralyses returns and catches hold of me. I crawl under the doona, refusing to wake up to face the harsh reality that is the nightmare of my life. Productivity is replaced by paralysis and denial…

My hours awake have become one big nightmare. My mind runneth over with thoughts that bring nothing but fear and apprehension. My hours asleep, conversely, are the only things that keep me sane and alive - it is only in sleep that I think of nothing and find solace… provided I fall asleep that is… the transition from alertness to slumber has become an issue.

In the past three or four nights, I found myself crying spontaneously. There is nothing specific that prompts these combustive bawling sessions. Just everything in general. I go through my days with eyes swollen with tears threatening to flow. This is not good. This is not “normal”.

I am in such darkness that I don’t know if I am in a tunnel heading in one direction (hopefully the right one) or in a box going around in circles…

My life at the moment is one big cycle driven by fear.

Stop and stare
I think I’m moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I’ve become what I can’t be, oh
Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you’re ‘here’ not there
And you’d give anything to get what’s fair
But fair ain’t what you really need
Oh, can you see what I see
- “Stop and Stare”, One Republic

Posted on July 22nd, 2008 by jl
Filed under: Life!, work | 2 Comments »

How does one know that “love” is “real”?

While it’s entirely possible that two people can care and even “love” each other, how do we know that these emotions are the result of “romantic attraction” and not the result of habituation and “socialisation”?

While what the other party says might tell us something, they are not definitive as it is not unheard of that people say things they don’t necessarily mean.

This leaves with us having to observe actions/behaviour. However, does this mean all behaviour or only some? Is there perhaps a distinction to be made between critical behaviour and more mundane less important acts? So for instance, it says something when someone is willing to change their jobs and relocate just to be with you but it really doesn’t say much that he doesn’t call you everyday?

In observing behaviour, are one-off actions important, or do they have to be repeated before they acquire any meaning? Thus, does the fact that he remembered an important occassion and took you out for a fancy dinner say more than the fact that he constantly expects you to let him do what he wants even if it’s not what you want?

How do we discern, from the diverse range of human behaviour that “love” is “true”?

Or do we, as a friend intimated, rely on “intuition” and “gut feel” instead of on “facts”? And if so, how certain can we be of the reliability of our “intuition”?

Posted on June 2nd, 2008 by jl
Filed under: love | 13 Comments »

I’ve had to cancel a trip this weekend to see my boyfriend.

That’s how bad things are becoming.

I used to have time to watch an hour of “tv” in bed before going to sleep but in the past week that little luxury has disappeared.

For the first four months of this year, I went to the gym four times a week. In the past month, I’d be lucky if I managed to squeeze two trips out of the week.

I have it on good authority that this isn’t the worst yet. It is to come.

Frankly, I’m over it.

I’m tired of feeling constantly stressed.

I’m tired of constantly thinking about the thesis, even if it’s a nagging, annoying voice at the back of my head.

I’m tired of being in constant fear that the thesis will not be good enough or that I will never complete it.

I’m tired of being constantly on the verge of tears.

I’m tired of constantly juggling so many different priorities and activities that can never truly be reconciled.

I’m tired of feeling constantly paralysed from all this fear, anxiety and stress to the point of feeling catatonic half the time and completely unworthy the other half.

They really should have a health warning on PhDs, but they don’t. Meanwhile, I feel ready to be institutionalised into an asylum. I’m ready to crack.

Posted on May 30th, 2008 by jl
Filed under: Life!, work | No Comments »