Recuperation

I have taken some time off from being active online and engaging in digital correspondence with friends for a few weeks now. Somehow, it has felt both like a condensation and an expansion of time. During this period, I have stopped some activities I used to spend much more time doing (reading books, writing this blog), and instead picked up some other “passive” pastimes (I’m quite late on the Succession train but here I am, obsessed with a bunch of rich spoilt brats fighting for power). It has a been a phase of rest and recuperation, though the involuntary nature of it makes me somewhat restless to resume my regular routine.

Earlier this year, I got my left eye injured in a small accident. Since then, the issues with this injured eye have not ceased but somehow become debilitating for my everyday functioning every now and then. In March, I started having an inflamed, red, and constantly teary eye. Then I underwent a treatment and things got better for a while. Then May rolled around and the pain from my infected eye began to be once again uncontrollable. I met with another doctor, took my prescriptions, and saw (ha!) improvements for a couple of weeks. Then of course, whatever that is eating my eyeball up from the inside decided to rise from its temporary slumber and executed a full-on attack just as I was hoping my eye was finally alright. So here I am, having met with three ophthalmologists, somehow still not knowing how bad my eye injury/infection really is, still unsure about the most effective treatment, and praying every day that the latest prescriptions will finally cure me of the pain and inability to carry on with my work and social life. I was of course recommended to give my eye a break, to stop doing screen-intensive activities, and just turn to real life for a while so my eyeball wouldn’t be strained unnecessarily. At first I took the advice quite half heartedly, but as the condition worsened, I had no choice but to, you know, ‘unplug’.

I guess one of the biggest bummers has been the fact that I rarely read or write these days. At first it was only out of precaution, but then I actually fell into a reading/writing slump and couldn’t bring myself to pick up a new book even when my eye was rapidly recovering. I had some longer blog posts drafted before but now I just dread finishing them. I started writing this one because it is the most mindless, undemanding thing I can write at the moment. Still, I suppose slowly launching myself back into these activities, despite the resistance, is the best way to recover from the dormant, stationary state I have been in for the past weeks. I still have commitments to others, important things I need to get done at one point, and just generally exciting things I would like to engage in. Right now, all of these feel like a bundle of stress and toil just waiting to erupt in my face. But without some small attempts to defuse it step-by-step, the bundle will only grow bigger while I wilt away without any proactive, thrill-giving momentum.

Blog post has been empty and useless, but hey, I did write something.