I'm in Central Africa waiting for this variant to be identified here (it is undoubtedly already everywhere) and shut down the flights or at the very least land me in a two week quarantine when i get home : / I'm supposed to leave on the 13th but wondering if i should move my flight up....but then I just have so much to do after almost 2 years not here. Not sure what to do at all. Work WhatsApp group is a bit bananas.

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I had a dinner with a work colleague that i think could maybe try to more explictly connect with as a mentor. We drank wine and talked not just about work, but about what it is to be a woman in this field, and the tradeoffs and challenges. I got some good advice about what i need to do next. I want to really focus on work for the next year. It's such a commitment -- this work is really hard and it will take a lot of time and focus to step up. But with my dad in a holding pattern on a chemo break, I think i have some energy and resilience to draw upon. Even the act of thinking that I might try to try hard at something feels braver than I have been in a while. E does her intentions when she embarks upon something new, and I have been too overcome to even consider it.

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After like 15 years of never being able to identify even a single Taylor Swift song I now have this new 10 minute extended breakup song of hers in my head all the time. Last week I was in the provinces in a rural area and i had the earworm but no internet and no way to hear the song and I honestly thought i was going to lose my mind.

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i should probably document here that i'm kind of ridiculously in love and i have been for a while now. I spent months telling R (and myself), "do not get attached, I'm dead inside". But gradually i realized I’m way too rigid in my vision of what constitutes happiness. The only way forward is to be open to building a life that doesn't look like i thought it would. I still find it so hard to let myself be known by someone new, to be open to intimacy beyond our (*extremely* hot, thank god) chemistry. But I'm starting to dream of my future with R and it feels both exciting and secure. It is such a gift. With everything else going on, I do not take it lightly at all.

3:12 p.m. - 2021-11-28