Continuing on...

Days like today are why I’ve never been able to keep a journal. There are slow days where I can indulge myself and be introspective and thoughtful. On those days, I feel the need to write something down to remind myself of what was important. But then there are busy days – work and presentations and meetings – that don’t allow for anything other than productivity. So I wrapped up a presentation, then pretended I was competent and informed during my talk. I discussed collaborations and another animal study to examine problems I accidentally unearthed within my literature review.

Then there were meetings – figuring out how to make these studies work, calculating the necessary time and effort, checking yet another article to make sure we’re not missing something that another group already knows, estimating benefits, considering future publications and grants... Respond to email - quickly - because you’re late for another seminar. Continually remind yourself to focus and resist the temptation to make lists of what still needs to be done before you can fight traffic to arrive home.

I wandered to my car in a haze of ideas and questions. Does this have clinical impact? I think that's important. How long will it take? Because I'm still working on 2 old projects and have started 3 new ones. Is there a flaw in the current literature? Maybe the authors of that paper did control for the normal variation and our study would be superfluous. Can I just add this to someone else's study? I don't want to order animals and have my own mice. It's better to use mice that are already on studies. Do I need complete committee review or can I do an expedited application? I continue to question and consider as I weave through the cars, some going slowly in the left lanes, and head toward home.

Sometimes I wonder about the people in traffic. Do they get frustrated when we stop for no apparent reason? Are they going home to celebrate? Or just to rest? Is there TV they’re looking forward to? Are they giddy from some triumph at work? But today I turned up the radio, listened to music and tried to tune everything out. I just want distractions. Something else to focus on, to ease the constant stream of things to do, people to see, tasks to accomplish. And the questions - I'd like the stream of questions to stop for a while. That’s why I started reading blogs – it was an easy escape into someone else’s world.

I guess my hope in recording all of this is that someday I’ll get clarity for my own life. I admire a few people I read. I’m pleased for their successes and happiness and smile when I read about something good happening for them. I’ve passed others by – not interesting enough, not real enough, too hard to read with all the grammatical errors, incorrect spellings, and sometimes, for goodness sake, lack of capital letters. But the ones I read consistently, I eventually feel like I understand the piece of them that they present in their work. I follow the course of certain decisions someone has made, and get to see how things work out. Occasionally, I read about a choice and disapprove. From what I know of someone and her situation, I can see life going badly if a certain road is taken. There’s some vindication in being right – in understanding something well enough to predict an outcome.

For as much as I think about my decisions, I’m terrible at predicting my outcome and will endlessly obsess on rejected alternatives and how things would be different if I had understood myself better. So I’ll continue this - maybe with some vague hope that someone else might read it. If they do, maybe they’ll figure me out and offer some insight. If not, the worst case scenario is that I do it myself. And that still puts me ahead of where I currently am.