Depression is a strange thing. It pops up when you least expect it, and for me, it kills the joy of doing almost everything, even writing. I used to love writing and loved keeping this blog up to date. In the last couple of years though, it has been harder and harder to find the motivation to do much more than ensure I don’t get fired. Now that winter is finally over and daylight lasts a little bit longer, I hope that things will sort themselves out.

One of my biggest fears is that I will wake up in ten years and not realise all of that time has passed. Next week will be four years at the University of Glasgow, and I have no idea how that happened. The pandemic was a blur of nonstop work and three years later, not much has changed. I feel like my cycle of burnout at work comes faster and faster now. Because I don’t have the free time that I did when I was a PhD student, the trips and adventures are too few and far between. The ridiculous cost of living and travel hasn’t helped either. So, because of that, I have spent far too much time on my couch overworked and underappreciated, and at the end of the day, I do not feel like I have anything fun or interesting to say. In essence, my worst fear has come true. This has left me feeling restless and cagey and very very grumpy. I am tired of feeling tired and very tired of feeling negative.

It also does not help that addiction has claimed the life of yet another brother. He died almost 7 years to the day that the other brother died, which has made it extra difficult for my dad. At least this time my mom was with him and not here with me. I still worry about my dad though because he takes most of the blame for it, and isn’t really interested in something like grief counselling. It has been a few months now and things are starting to find their way back to a new normal, but it is hard to be so far away from everyone. I’m never really sure how anyone is holding up, and I have had to do all of my processing solo, which isn’t always fun.

I have decided that in an effort to pull myself out of my slump, I will revisit the trips that I took at the end of 2022 that I did not chronicle as they happened. I’m headed to Prague next week for some real time off, and plan to do as much writing for fun as possible and enjoy a short city break.