“Oh darling I think that all of the answers
went south on the backs of those grey winged birds” — Chris Pureka
Where has the time gone? My springtime enthusiasm and adventures slipped through my fingers with a simple doctor’s visit: I needed surgery to remove a couple pieces of bone I chipped off in my knee during a skiing injury in 2008. A few weeks on crutches and months of physical therapy later, here I am, still dreaming triathlon dreams but further than I was from it last April. I looked at my hands yesterday, so pale and decorated with a few visible blue streaks where my veins return blood back towards my heart. Is it possible that it was just summer? Yes, I spent three wonderful August weeks helping a colleague conduct scuba/snorkel research, but have I been outside during daylight hours in the past month? Ok, I’ll admit, yes, I have, but really only in transit to another indoor location. Is life meant to be this busy? I trade in sleep hours for work hours, betting them like poker chips in a hand I one day hope to win. But is there ever an end to this game? When can I turn in my tickets for the prize and the break?
It’s not that I don’t enjoy this never-ending roller coaster of work and play. I feel lucky to be loved by great people, and wish i could maintain even better contact. I am fascinated every day with the science I read and learn: between scripting adventures in python, research planning for my dissertation, and data analysis for a conservation successes project, there’s always something interesting to keep my wandering mind excited. I just hope that one day, my search for the elusive life ‘balance’ I keep hearing about will be fruitful. Research, family, friends, sleep, cycling, and music, all woven together in a perfectly bound tapestry of golden balance. Then again, where would be the fun in that?
