.
Who Am I?

Mom continues to make slow, but positive progress.

My father-in-law feels back up to snuff and is enjoying each day.

* * * * *

I feel somewhat numb.... emotionally. It is comforting. It is almost feeling like I am a point where I can start my old life again... starting it over again. This is a feeling I frequently feel after a significant shattering of routine due to some sort of chaotic situation..... often my mother's various illnesses (and this last one was the worst event of chaos I have evermexperienced), my wife's surgery a few years ago, my wife's pneumonia last year.

I do not know if it is just a pipe dream though. Should I try to return to my old (wonderfully beautiful) life of plans for research, writing, and teaching, or should I accept that it is not particularly likely to last for long? Should I simply do the minimum requirement for teaching and let everything else slide? If I do that, will I lose something of who I am, or will I become more free? If I lose myself, what or who will I become? If I become more free, for what purpose? To do more taking care of people?

These questions are serious, I do not mean them in any sort of joking manner. Should I give up the tilting at windmills? Should I give up goals for me as a biologist? Should I just take the easier way out on a day-to-day basis and just simply exist?

I do not know. I have loved my job, my career, my efforts in biology and science. Yet, perhaps I need to give more of myself to my family now?

I really wish I could sort through these chaotic feelings.

PipeTobacco


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