It's been quite a while since I've posted anything. He said, stating the obvious. I have been "meaning to," which is meaningless.
I got a birthday wish from an old friend (perhaps the longest friendship of my life, dating back to when I was 12, I think; so, since 1973). I wrote a reply which captures a lot of how I've been experiencing life and figured I would just paste it here.
Thank you for the birthday email. Here we are in our 60's, how surreal somehow. I think I started commenting on it last year, but I have still not gotten used to it. I think my primary experience of life for the past few years has been one of mildly exasperated exhaustion. I often find myself wishing for all of "it" to stop. I fantasize about disconnecting, disappearing, and sleeping or being completely undirected and mindless for years on end. I think this is a proportional longing considering the endless challenges and changes of the last eight years or so, after I decided to get the Ph.D. I've moved 10 times, did the whole Ph.D. process, got diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder, had a couple of destructive relationship dramas and got into a new one that is supportive and great but is still "work," had a detached retina and four eye surgeries, published three papers, passed through family losses and the pandemic, taught high school for two years in Los Angeles, got a postdoc, been working nonstop since forever, etc. So I find myself often at my wit's end these days so to speak, and I've been in a regular cycle of finding even the simplest and most mundane tasks nearly impossible sometimes. I farm out a lot of ordinary things. I drop my laundry off, I order takeout to be delivered. I've even been tempted to hire a housecleaner to clean my tiny apartment.
The weird thing is that everything is really good, and going well, in spite of my persistent desire for everything to just leave me alone and stop. The postdoc is going okay, although I intensely dislike and do not get along with my PI. The original PI who hired me was fired due to University politics, and I inherited a person I find incredibly annoying and difficult to work with. But the saguaro survey is going well, we hired a couple of awesome field techs who are helping me, I am enjoying being in the field, I like living in weird Tucson. I was hired as the editor of the peer reviewed journal of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America, Haseltonia, and then I was hired as the managing editor of CSSA publications, including the quarterly Cactus and Succulent Journal. I think I told you I was arrested for trespassing in Texas last March? Anyway, my lawyer finally got those charges dismissed, which is great. The relationship with M is remarkably good, supportive, enjoyable, and drama-free. I published a third paper out of the dissertation. I'm in my 19th year sober and I'm in good health, the latest prostate biopsy found less cancer than the first one did, and on and on.
So it is a highly conflicted time, where my inner state is pretty dark and tumultuous as I sail through all of these outer "successes," somehow with the nagging feeling that I can't just enjoy them. Everything secretly feels like an enormous chore, my impostor syndrome has been acute and chronic, I feel quite often that my "entire life" has been a spectacular failure. Quite the weird period for sure.
It would be "good for me" to get into counseling therapy, probably, and maybe go back on Wellbutrin for a while. It would be "good for me" to get back into AA and CoDA meetings, and to exercise more, and to eat better. Of course, I am not doing any of those things. haha.
Anyway this is a heavy email lol. Happy birthday to you also; I missed it.
My little jazz community on Facebook has been all about Pharoah Sanders since his death, and I've been reminded that I was not always that huge of an appreciator of his playing or concept. I think his death has given me an opportunity to revisit a lot of it and realize I may have been impatient and missed some of the value. There was something unfocused, meandering, sappy, and self-conscious that I was picking up for years. But I am admiring some of the recordings that used to be annoying. It's a side benefit of sticking around a little longer, allowing taste to develop and be surprising sometimes.
I don't think you are listening to much or any contemporary "pop" music or "songs" these days, but I have been for a while, and have been appreciating that space for story telling and even sentimentality. The latest is a remarkable album by Big Thief called Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You.
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=MTIzsTv1ENY&list=PLZqsyBiYZFQ0EBNozuVBpLPr2zQMuM2gk
Anyway, friend, thanks for listening. I hope there's tons of good things happening reliably for you. Thanks again for the birthday wish.
Take care.
The above, my first time seeing Cochemiea conoidea in flower, near my lawyer's ranch in Texas. I went on a bit of a strange adventure back over to West Texas, in an effort to meet the ranch manager who had pressed trespassing charges, and apologize in person. It turned we never were able to meet, but somehow I thin the three day trip contributed to his willingness to drop the charges.
One of my dedicated and reliable field techs wrangling the 12 m telescoping measuring pole, to measure a 9.7 m saguaro that was only about 1.5 m tall in 1908. It's been a wild 114 years for this one, or about 134 years since germinating. I have been thinking about survivorship.