Preoccupation

by Rie

I’ve spent much time away. This is strange because there is no reason for me to be away except that I am.

I commenced my final year in December last year. The first of a series of rotations has come and gone. Then, the second. Now, the third.

I am happier. This is strange because nothing has really changed except that I am happier. I still know nothing, I still can predict nothing, I haven’t added or removed anything substantial to my life since 2012. Things have been added and things have been taken away – some with more force than others – yet there is a sure and steady knowledge building that tells me I am happier.

This is all relative, of course.

I talked to my sister the other day about this blog. How valuable it has been. It truly is ‘the one in Sydney’. This brief five years in a strip of goodness-how-long of my life span spent in this new place. The place itself is immaterial; it’s only a marker.

How funny it is that even as I am not in Sydney, I am in Sydney. Just as how I am not the same person, I am the same person.

You can probably tell that time has done nothing for my writing, either.

Time has, however, given me the ability to say “meh” with greater force. It doesn’t matter if I am clever (because I am not) or if I am different (because I am human – I am relatively the same as you because I am different from a Bonobo ape).

On that note, I am still reading. More slowly than usual. I drink slowly from a book and regurgitate its contents for months until I feel I am full. The regurgitation prevents me from ever feeling truly full.

That was quite a gross analogy. Maybe I am becoming more like a vet after all.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter. What does it matter to me if I constructed metaphors pleasing to the mind’s ear? I’ll probably write something else and wince all the same in future.

As you can expect, there isn’t much consequence to this post. It simply exists. To remind my future self that she is better than she was.

Good job, future self.