when we started dating I could tell it made him happy, and there was something about it that gave me joy. just making him happy. now with the slow realisation that outward happiness can often be an unconscious front, and possibly for many other unknown reasons, something of that has gone away. now he says he has never felt better, but I feel uncertain of what I'm doing here. there's also this strange feeling that this was probably the purpose of us meeting in this life, and that my work here is done?!

we have stopped fighting, he has a lot more control over his anger, and on his compulsions. but I am always nagged with the thought that what I see is only the tip of it, as was always the case.

but much more than that I wonder if I owe more to myself, in living elsewhere, a different life. I thought I didn't want children, but then I felt this unexpected momentary desire this summer for it, that I still recall clearly, and that made me wonder if my want or lack of it was conditional on the life i am living. 

Laura Marling's lyrics "there's a life across the river that is meant for me..." resonates. but then there's also "stop desiring a life that you want, and live the life that you have" or something to its effect that keeps knocking ... 

I listened to Anderson Cooper's podcast 'All there is' driving up and down to work mostly yesterday; there were horrible traffic jams all over. him and his guests talking about loss and grief, and there was so much of both. I hadn't known about Gloria Vanderbilt witnessing her older son jump to his death, I hadn't known Stephen Colbert's tragic loss. but I had seen the film 'Dick Johnson is dead' and the maker was a guest too. and another guest Laurie Anderson said some things about death and how it reminds us guiltily of what more we could have done (and how we make it about ourselves) that reminded me of something I had written here a few years ago.

and then there are these conversations i have with my new friend at work, that always leave me feeling that he has barely experienced life, it's brutality it's unfairness, but also it's variety and beauty, and that his worldview is immature. 

K said y'day that he worried about me because I got angry and upset at every rejected paper, but barely savoured the few positive responses and little successes. to me those always feel much delayed and much played down, like crumbs thrown out at me as consolation prizes.

I tried therapy one day, on my own, to figure out if I have fallen out of love. but it was all too much to explain to a stranger. plus my feelings keep flipping too. 

one of my teaching assistants has OCD, bipolar disorder, and delusions. and then this one day two of my colleagues and i were having lunch when one of them started talking about their anxiety issues and how their PhD advisor had first realised it and spoke to them about it. then the other colleague started talking about their unbearable anxiety while on the job market. and then both talked about their journey in therapy. the woman said she had had a hard time with an American therapist because it had entailed her having to explain her cultural baggage from scratch. I feel quite the opposite or i feel judged unfairly by Indian culture and those brought up in it because I seem to want to dissociate and distance myself from all that my home towns, cities, and country have offered me and taught me. and i don't feel apologetic about it either. in fact in another conversation when my immature and bookish friend said he missed being younger and innocent, my reaction was that I was only stupid and brainwashed when I was younger andnow i finally have my 'own' opinions...