Nobody believed that April 1st could be someone’s birthday; why would they? But it was my father’s. It still feels like yesterday since August 2020 – the month he passed. He died doing what he loved, helping people in need, and although he was past his 70s, the doctor inside him never died.
I’m still healing physically and mentally from the fallout of covid. Even my phone warned me about a change in the state of my sleeping heart rate. My VO2max has been trashed to 40s which is not a number I want to be at. After getting up, I didn’t feel great today morning; I went for a 2.8 mile run at 7:37/mi pace, but it was also humid. I also rowed for 20 minutes after that but barely did any work at home.
I also ended up sleeping in the afternoon after lunch. The whole week was more than okay, and suddenly this happened, and it’s hard not to freak out.
I want to get back to normalcy where I’m giving my 5000% at work, working out at total capacity, studying with my heart. I have a 4-mile race on April 3rd in manhattan. I’ve given up most hopes that I will perform adequately, but time will tell which wolf wins inside me. I also lost internet connectivity today during the afternoon, which feels more great than bad.
It’s hard to move on from everything when the past is still on your mind; Did you know that heartbreak triggers the same areas of the brain as physical pain? There’s a reason why when every author, from Shakespeare to Salinger, writes about young people, they can’t avoid the truth, that being young is so painful, it’s almost too much to feel.
When we talk about love – parents, pets, or romantic ones, heartbreak is heartbreak.
When we love someone, the bits of your brain that light up are the same as when you’re hungry or thirsty. And when that person you love leaves you, you starve for them, you crave them, Heartbreak is a science, like love. So trust me when I say this: you’re wounded right now, but you’ll heal.
Love, it’s a chemical reaction that comes and goes. So is heartbreak. Your brains adjusts. Your body chemistry changes back to normal.
When I look at that, it reminds me that people are just the ashes of dead stars. We’re just a collection of atoms that come together for a brief period of time, and then we fall apart. When all of this is over and we are dispersed back into nothingness we have a clean slate. It’s like having all of your sins wiped away.
To see you I turn; To know you I burn.
My mentors repeatedly told me that my highs would be very high; the lows would be very low. And I will have to accept that eventually. When we’re pushing ourselves to our absolute limits to increase our boundaries, there will be times when things are not going to work out. It can be research, work, innovation, mental state, personal/social life, etc.
It’s only been a month from covid detection and recovery, but I’m still just angry. I’m rarely mad at anyone – ever. Honestly, I think I’m trying to find excuses to become angry at this state of being as if my spaceflight aborted me and my backup was told to go onboard.
Till then – Push. Break. & Push again I guess.