Back to the present!

There are days in which all you can do is just keep breathing…
and breathing…
and breathing…
and after a while, you notice that you are living in the present, right now, neither regretting the past, nor worrying about the future. Too bad this doesn’t take long and you usually get back to your old self.

2009 was a strange year, so strange that it even dragged the weirdness with itself to 2010. It was the year of hopes which crashed to pieces, dreams which turned into nightmares, excitements which turned to nervousness. More than anything, it was the year of struggle.
I, and many others around me or close to my heart, had to struggle; to achieve some natural right; to keep some dreams alive; sometimes even to live.

I fought stubbornly at work. Too bad I couldn’t change my job; there were more than a couple of factors involved. The equation couldn’t be solved easily. The breath-taking fight led to an article in the end, although I was so tired that I couldn’t even enjoy the fruit of my plant.

Friendship was another major issue in my life during the last 15 months. It was one of the main subjects of my observations and thoughts. I found friends, lost friends, met friends, missed friends, made friendships, broke up some ties. I watched my friends going through struggles of their own. I watched friends of my friends, their relatives, and the strangers. I watched people of my country struggling. It was a dark era. I’m not going to write about it here and now... maybe some other time.

But then, in the middle of all this, I somehow survived. I went through the five stages of grief for my lost hopes and ruined plans: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I screamed and wept, worried and panicked, complained and nagged. Neither got anywhere, so I simply stopped. Now I look at the last 15 months as another part of my life. Nothing major has changed. Nothing big has happened. There is only one thing: since I’ve lost hope, I live much easier.