wet paper bag

It's kind of like when you think of a great retort the next day, but it's way too late.  If I'd taught myself Russian twenty years ago, while Daniel was still alive, that would have made a world of difference.  He would have taken me travelling to Russia with him. Doing so would suddenly make a whole lot more sense, and it would have shown interest on my part, engagement.

I couldn't seem to figure out how to actually be interested or engaged.  Only anxious and lethargic.  It didn't occur to me that I could teach myself Russian.  Nor did it cross my mind, the various connections doing so potentiates, to life, to people, to living in the world.  I'd always been stuck in this limbo of thinking I'd be capable of things like learning languages, in general.  If I set my mind to it.  Yet, afraid get specific and set my mind to it, only to find that I couldn't.  Afraid it would be too difficult.  To concentrate, really.  To simply sit down and do it.  This is perplexing to me now, as I'm doing it and for no good reason.

I still haven't been back to training.  I went as far as to get all ready the day before yesterday, left my apartment, but my ribs were still pretty sore.  If my self diagnosis is accurate, it should take at least another week, while aggravating it will just make it worse.  I started thinking about how rough class can be even when I'm at my best, and decided it was probably still a bad idea.  I'm afraid of taking this much time off, though.  I don't trust my neurophysiology not to shift in some way for some reason, negating all of this.  I'm afraid breaking the routine of it might risk that.

It makes no sense and I really sympathize with how hard it can be to sympathize, but I'm afraid of how easily it seems I can open my eyes in the morning, unable to think of a single damn reason to ever get out of bed again.  Let alone reasons to do all sorts of other things.  Thinking can be a lot harder than it looks.