Reflections

Today I did my last final for the fall semester. I finished my first semester back from medical leave, and all these little things are making me remember times past.

I ate a flavor of ice cream, I don’t really remember the name. It’s after taste was just like these cookies I used to eat sophomore fall before I took the leave. It reminded me of a time when my diet consisted of cookies and milk and sometimes the occasional cereal. It reminded me of how I thought it was practical. How I didn’t know how to change this.

I've been thinking about going to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Finally, having finished the semester and with free time on my hands I decided to concretise the idea. However, I couldn’t help but think of the first time I went there. I was with a friend I met at the hospital. He was then manic and very friendly and I was very depressed but willing to interact. So we decided to go to the MFA together around a month after we were discharged from the hospital. I think of how we stopped talking. I wonder what he would think of my subsequent hospitalizations. How we bonded over our illness but that wasn’t enough. Being in the hospital is painful although helpful. But some people just don’t want a reminder of this.

I think back to the day my request was approved. The email was so short and simple. I received it on Friday and it calmed all my anxieties. The response had taken longer than the average time. I would refresh my email every little while and had memorized the time work started and ended. Sometimes this semester I think back to that moment and my heart is filled with gratitude. Sometimes I can’t even believe I am here. On those days I welcome even the most daunting pset or the crushing loneliness I’ve come to expect on most days.

People talk about pregnancy scares, and in that spirit I think of my first depression scare. I had started withdrawing myself from situations. Started doing less and not feeling any remorse about it. The day I called it what it was, was when I knowingly missed my classes in which I had a quiz that was very important. In addition I don’t think I had bothered to prep for it. I had been substituting all the other stuff for sleep, so sometimes I would sleep like 16 hours a day. I then messaged my therapist. We did damage control after that, changed my meds and increased my therapy sessions and check-ins with my psychiatrist. It’s been a month and a half since then, and I still go to therapy twice a week. However I’m positive I got through that hurdle with flying colors.

I’ve been apprehensive lately, of the nature of life. How things have to always keep moving. Even though I’m celebrating finishing my first semester back, I’m worried about the spring semester and the summer. I want independence, but I don’t know how to handle it. I want to be able to be in control, but I wish someone would tell me how to make things work. I’m growing though, and I’m learning to be okay with it.