Day 14 — In my Defence..

bathos

/’beɪθɒs/

[bey-thos, -thaws, -thohs]

noun

1.  a ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax.
2.  insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness.
3.  triteness or triviality in style.

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It’s been a trying few hours. Today in and of itself was a bit shambolic. It started out a bit wonky, even, and this was almost a precursor for what was to come. So as aforementioned, I came back from mentoring on Thursday night completely exhausted and physically drained. I woke in the wee hours, did my late post and carried on my day.

Yea. By the time I wrote ‘Day 13’ all desire to return to sleep had left me. And so I stayed up reading forums on phone reviews, watching relevant YT videos, etc. Again, this is nothing to with running because thus far it has taken a bit of a back burner seat amongst priorities.

After a few hours —let’s say by 5/6 am— I noticed Em, too, wasn’t able to put her thoughts aside and go back to sleep, so we joined together to watch a few more episodes of Archer. Good good. So then I had a perfectly good excuse to be up making curry chicken at 6 in the morning. Damn was it good.  Should have taken a picture of it but trust me it was yum. And healthy! Where dieting is concerned I’d say I’m doing pretty alright all things considered [This is not counting that bag of gummies I ate last night].

Though not completely exhausted, by 7ish-a.m. I figured if I really was to go to the lab in the daytime,  the sensible thing to do would be to have a quick nap—so that’s what I did.  Quick it was not. I slept (knowingly) through the 3…5 alarms I set and carried on in my haven until at least noon. By that time I had convinced myself, whilst still mid-sleep even, that going to the lab today was “doing way too much” if not utterly unnecessary. The spirit of laziness was no doubt there with me in those hours. Instead I planned my day at home to be very productive; I’d clean up, wash my hair, go for a light run, and shop  the outdoor market for some work attire.

Of course I only did one of those things.

 

 

£ 2.99, £5 and £5 respectively.

Each £5!!

£10 steal.

 

Everything there totals to £37.99. Which I consider a great deal seeing as we’re still knee-deep in winter, and good warm clothing is usually more expensive at this time. Thank heavens for the outdoor markets and their tedious setup. Nothing here is in ‘bad’ condition; good quality clothing (some brand-name) at reasonable prices. Discounts all around! What a time to be alive.

So now I’m prepared for work. If only prep for this race was so one-dimensional.

Tonight I headed out to the ‘Feeling Emotional’ event at the Wellcome Collection with my sister and a friend.

We didn’t actually make it in because it was craaazzyy packs. I’m talking like 300 people lining up —on either side of the entrance. God bless people willing to stand in a queue for 30 minutes, only to move up by 1 metre. It was drizzling, so that wasn’t about to be us. Instead, we resigned to a pub nearby which was crowded with my UCL kin, and an overwhelming smell of old fish and chips. Fantastic. Sitting outside thinking, is this even worth it?  we drank our overpriced Old Mout and caught up in the freezing cold, helped only slightly by the overhead heater.

To describe our outing in one word: bathos. 

The rest of the night, I wish, remained so unremarkable. By the time we made it home and had dinner, my sister and I got wind of our grandma’s increasingly worsening condition. To backtrack: she had two strokes sometime mid-January, and of course, hasn’t been the same since. She’s a badass though, so her almost-90-year-old body’s been fighting it in considerably good stride. #ageinggoals. Luckily my parents were able to make it back to Guyana in time to see her; I’m so happy that my mom gets to see her mom again. Had this not happened, I don’t know how things would have panned to for her/us. Now unfortunately, we’ve had a bit of a scare, with

It’s almost as if —in my mum’s words— that my gran was just waiting for my mother to arrive in Guyana. Now she’s had a chance to speak to all of her girls in person. I reaallyy hope she gets better soon, that goes without saying. If she does leave us this year though, I strongly hope for it to not be this month. As selfish as this sounds, my mom’s birthday was only a few days ago; I’d hate for every following birthday to be a glum timestamp for her, overcast by such a consuming tragedy.

 

So anyway, as much as I’m trying to be disciplined about updating this blog —off days, and all; though now it’s evidently more off than on— I’ll give myself a pass for this one. A lot has happened in the past 12 hours or so. I can only imagine what my mom’s going through right now. I hope she takes comfort in having family nearby, and that she is doing the best she can at this moment in time.

 

This whole ordeal really puts my trivial set of issues in perspective. And if anything, it makes me want to go running again.