something of a downer.

Well I promised an update didn’t I? I’m typing this on the flight on my way back to Chicago. I think we’re somewhere south of Greenland now. It’s about 8pm Istanbul time, and noon in Chicago. Its going to be a long day. I’m going through a bit of a rough period actually. For those of you that know me well, you know what I’m talking about. I’m actually finding it hard to concentrate and type this now… I was all set to do a nice little write-up of my first visit to Turkey, but I’ve become preoccupied with some other things. Sometimes I’m not even thinking about it, other times I can’t get it out of my head. Its all the little things that remind me and bring back memories. In the solitude of my hotel room it’s the worst. I have trouble sleeping in the best of circumstances. Nowadays, when I’m lying in the bed, trying to go to sleep at 10 or 11pm so I can get enough rest for work the next day, I find myself rerunning the same thoughts, over and over again in my head. Its like a movie, that keeps playing out, rewinding, and starting over again. Around 2 or 3am I usually pass out due to exhaustion. 4 hours later, I get up, rested or not, for a day of work. (It also doesn’t help when I change time zones by 8 or 15 hours). This is bad on the weekdays of course. I seek solace knowing that on Saturday or Sunday I’ll be able to catch up on some sleep. But it’s the same thing. As I prepare for bed, the thoughts come crashing through again like an unwanted guest.

On the weekends, I’ll get to bed around 1-2am and its not necessarily because I’m out at a bar, or visiting friends. And I’ll get up around 6 or 6:30. I never seem to make it up on the weekends, so I wonder when the exhaustion will finally come to a boil. To be completely honest, the last 4 months have been pretty much a big haze. I have trouble remembering things I’ve done. Granted, Jan-Mid-March was pretty much nonstop work. But then again, with so much work, I didn’t have time to think about other pressing matters.

And I’ve got some pressing issues that I have to deal with this year. One of which is an Exam in Mid June. After that, there are some decisions I have to make. Its going to be tough, and if I have sleepless nights now, I wonder what the near future holds. Do you ever wonder if you’ve made the right decisions? I don’t mean the small ones. I’m talking about the big decisions that directly affect your life years from now. I’m thinking I’ve made one of the biggest mistakes in my life when I was 18. Things aren’t the way I want them now and I wonder if a decision I made 10 years ago would have made any difference. Maybe it wouldn’t have. I suppose that’s something I’ll never discover.

I made another decision 2 years ago, and I’m wondering if that also was a mistake. That one I’m not so sure about.

Where am I going to be in 5 years? 3 years? 1 year? The immediate future is bleak.

See next post for the Istanbul summary.