Darker days, but better things

After turning the clock back an hour over the weekend, I've been shocked by how dark it's been by the time I'm done on campus. Just last week, I was able to see the pink glow on the horizon as I walked home from the Skytrain station, but this week, the sky is already a dusky blue by the time I step out of the classroom.  On the train, it's lights against a velvety black that I see now.

I've reached a plateau of sorts, after several weeks of emotional nadir. It's been my friends who have helped me through this tough time. Yes, they're always there for me, always supportive, but they're also not enabling my self-sabotaging, self-pitying behaviour. Last night, I touched base with my friend K who had been on vacation for a few weeks, several long weeks it seemed to me. She knew me so well that she made me cry.... It was a good cry, one that was cathartic, that made me see that I was quickly becoming a person that I didn't like at all. I was too hung up on the past, and allowed myself to be haunted by past ghosts that I missed the important things of the here-and-now. I had allowed my schoolwork to lapse, when it should have been one of my priorities, something that I had aimed for and had wanted badly for myself.

Another friend, J, made a pact with me last night. We would not see each other or talk to each other any more if I were to continue on this self-destructive path. We're going by the honour system, and I know I must honour this pact because she has honoured me by being so brave as to suggest it in the first place.

Oh, and there's nothing like a good movie to vicariously resolve some emotional turmoil. I saw The Secret Life of Bees the other day, and was weepy throughout. I had to try very hard not to sob out loud, and there were such enormous lumps in my throat that I was visibly shaking at times. But it felt wonderful.

Tomorrow, I'll be taking an important exam for my statistics course. I feel prepared for it, as my focus is back now. I'm ready to kick some stats butt! I think it's my best course so far, when ironically, it's the class I had been most afraid of at the beginning. If I do as well as I hope to do tomorrow, I'll come away with a final mark of 100% in the course, or very close to it anyway. It's something I've not been able to do since my high school days, when it wasn't so hard to get "perfect" on tests, assignments, and exams.

Thanks to everyone who has been there for me. Not all of those people read this blog, but I thank them all the same. And to those of you who do read my blog, thank you too. You've helped me by letting me have this forum to vent.

Here are some pics of the beach in West Vancouver, on one of the last beach days of the season: