This is a Checkpoint during one of those days that February or March borrow a sunny day from July.

It’s been almost five months since the passing of an extremely important person who had a very big impact in my life despite the short time we shared together. It has been even less time since a very close person to me also left this world after a lifetime being there and providing love and joy. I’ve moved on slowly, although the sense of impeding doom never fully fades. It never will, as I’m growing older and realising one thing or two about life and death. The passing of time often poses as the most defining entity of this cosmology.

So many things have changed since 2019 that I doubt it makes sense to list them and summarise them. In many aspects I am a very different person from what I was back then.

This past year has been very difficult, for me, for us, and for the whole world. There is nothing new to that. We thought we’d be fine -and so far we are quite good regarding the pandemic situation, but recently tragedy struck in our close environment of people. There is also this thing I said above about this brilliant person. I feel very weird about it all, sometimes like I didn’t deserve it at all. I want to make his posthumous memory proud of me and of having bet on me. I happily got the iPad he told me about so I could read papers and fix my stuff, as he commanded!

I love our home. We are living back where I noticed about the summery winter mornings for the first time. Orange trees are about to bloom, and I noticed that is one of the main components fueling that feeling. It has been a cold winter, but days are slowly getting brighter and our plants will likely start to heal again. Our living room is very cozy and I am excited about revisiting some old games and stories. I’ve found some ROM hacks that I can’t wait to play, and I’ve been progressing on my nostalgia run through all the DS Pokémon games. We’ve got some nice extra things for decoration. Now I have a very cute humidifier that fills my room with the scent of tea tree.

Things look nice, but at the same time I feel chased by a looming threat. I strongly believe, and this is not a naive belief, that it has a lot to do with accumulated stress. I am in the middle of writing some projects to ensure a sustainable future, and there are potential workarounds that, although far from optimal, may be just as good as the main thing. I also have some due dates and work that needs to be re-done, and the thought of going through it all again sounds so tedious. But we’re getting there, this time for once and all. I would love to have some time to do more insights in other species, and likely there will be time for that.

My room looks so nice too. Now it’s in full shape, with my new deskchair and a pretty shelf with all my science books together. I’ve been reading ‘Your Inner Fish’, and will likely be followed by Jay-Gould assays or ‘The Extended Selfish Gene’. These are proving to enrich my love for life, genes, cells, molecules and development once again. With the room tied together as it is now, I think I’ll be able to work more comfortably.

I’ve been updating the blog, too. There is a couple of things that I would like to get done and published here, that will complement my recent work and lay a path for other people to keep on some leftover ideas I am not able to work on right now.

I’m liking these February and March weeks. I would like to remember them like that.