Being in the in-between phase is challenging. It sucks big time. I never imagined myself ever going through such a phase. It doesn’t feel like a phase but some of the loved ones say with full confidence that it is. I can barely focus for more than 10 seconds. And when I do I feel so much fatigue after. For someone who has charted out a lot of her life and made plans to the point where she had her life figured out, to be in this phase is like failure. A pit that she’s in that she doesn’t know if she can even get out of. My mind and I are shocked that even after taking the right steps, working hard, and having certain expectations, to be here in this phase, is like a true WTF moment.

I am the loneliest I’ve ever been, where I don’t have a support system of friends. Which has been very hard for me because of how much I’ve been, for almost two years, been craving connection and now that I have left the environment where I was deteriorating, I am in this in between phase.

There have been externalities, which came from living in Minneapolis. Some day I might write them or not. It was a challenging time. I don’t know why I had so much trouble there and I was unable to keep trying. But I really lost myself there. And I made a hard decision exactly 1.5 weeks ago to not go back and resign from my current job. I lost practice with – talking, laughing, thinking, learning, using my intelligence, connecting with others, and many other things. That all of those that I listed require me immense energy and when I do them, I am drained. Lakshmi and my mom say that I am just out of practice and that eventually I will be like my old self again with some upgrades. I hope so. I really do.

I will be honest, I didn’t want to write this blog. Because in my mind, I thought that I don’t have the ability anymore and I won’t be able to write in the ‘perfect’ way where this blog would be published worthy. But then I remembered that I am human, this blog’s purpose is a collection of my thoughts, and an outlet for me and space for others to join me. It was never meant to be some NYT or TOI type of writing platform. So I am pushing myself because you can’t wait for motivation, you just do it and over time you get back into it. Also, no AI will be used, what you’re reading is what I am thinking and feel like writing out. AI, by the way, will be getting its own post, not because it deserves to but because of how detrimental it is to human intelligence and needs to be called out.

I’ve been dealing with health anxiety, which developed in Minneapolis. I moved there in November 2024 and that was the beginning of winter. I had never experienced Midwest MN winter and WOW was I blindsided big time! The things that winter did to my mental and physical health, I never even imagined and the worst part, I went through it alone. Completely alone. My partner wasn’t there, we were in LDR and he had travel plans for both the big holidays – thanksgiving and christmas. I was entirely alone. It was the worst 3 months of my life. Suddenly all the body sensations were getting scrutinized and me being without a community and not knowing where I could go for health emergencies caused me to me feel utterly helpless. I even stopped working out cause breathlessness started to feel scary which led to me eventually not working out in the gym or at home due to weather, mental state, loneliness, and general fatigue. I am improving since I have moved back home but there are lingering sensations still.

This is as far as I can go for today. This was a lot but I am proud of myself for writing this much especially after so long and that to without AI, in this day and age.