The Beginning...

Today officially marks the beginning of a half-month away from office work. Yesterday, we had some real fun at work with a skeleton strength of eight colleagues, Hitler's Young included. And the keys to our joy were simple: good food (or what is considered as much at work: fast food, generally), jokes, casual colloquies, glimpses of impending days stuck at home. Hitler's Young was candid, to say the least. Coming from me, that is an understatement. To put things in perspective: a colleague once teased me, enthroned her as my "Goddess" - and she was not far from the truth. To a certain extent, my "Goddess" has the knack in motivating me. Take for example, she was asking, out of the blue, if I have continued my runs during this pandemic, and if I do so with a face-mask. And there, I was triggered to go for a long run after work, close to half past eight onward. To be fair to myself, I had planned for a run way beforehand. But her inquisitions drove me further than the route I intended - which is a good thing, no matter how you look at it. I guess it does not take a lot to feel appreciated, especially by someone you have high regards for.

One other reason for entering a blank space here is to write about my mental state, or rather, to reassure myself, during this pandemic. Again, one has to be positive during this trying period. It is worth repeating this, to seal this in my mind. And Hitler's Young also seemed positive yesterday. If not what have we got? I have to ask. I also need to tell myself: Covid-19 is here for the long-run; we got to prepare to live with it. Like a marathon, endurance and persistence despite the odds are keys. Occasionally you need to let your hair down - so I write, read, run. These make up my coping mechanism in a mental crisis. I am glad to have befriended these companions over the years. In a way, I have consciously built a clear relationship with each of them. I have worked hard with each of them. And yes, I would go for a swim right after the circuit breaker, if allowed. Then, I will be right back at the beginning of my renewed life, the one that I painstakingly dug out from hell of depression. That time, I was thirty.    

Recently, the friend, who I mentioned in my previous post had asked for my blog's URL, confessed via Whatsapp messages, how he fell into depression during the initial days of the circuit breaker, as he worked from home. Apparently, it was not his first encounter with that monster in the head, having did so earlier in his schooling days, and obviously survived. I was afraid to ask: what was your coping mechanism back then? Surely you should be able to draw strength from that bad experience? I got no answers from him - I didn't even have to ask. You have to understand: men, in general, are not in touch with their feelings. They have problems expressing their feelings clearly. To say the truth, I found this trait prevalent particularly in this friend. He is also not one to think deeply about life, or at least, it seems to me. I count myself lucky in these instances. My writing saves me.  

There, I am glad that I did this, back to the beginning...

Wrote this 3 years ago:

At 30

No time to mourn on

Dead possibilities; start
A new life alone.