I wonder if I've merely been brewing storms in teacups, and if so, why. I've ceased to be able to explain myself, to rationalise my actions. Or perhaps it's just because the depth of that insecurity is so profound that I don't even want to reach anywhere close. Do we live for the moment or for the future? It's a simple question of the here and now, and my weakness is simply the lack of patience, the tendency to put things together, to draw hasty conclusions, to get upset about things that i shouldn't, and probably don't even have the right to. I've tried so hard to put aside the selfishness, the unspoken fears and insecurity, and I convinced myself that whatever is best for you will bring me happiness as well. And perhaps I have, in my impatience and tetchiness, misunderstood things. But I wished you just gave me an answer so that I could stop second-guessing, fretting and tossing in bed over a future that is already so uncertain. And maybe that is what it was all about: the future reality that we've tried to avoid as we (dis)comfort ourselves with what we have (or not) in the present. I've been tiring myself over things that I have no solutions over, in addition to the revision that is skipping around in circles, the periodic panic attacks, the weeks of fitful sleep. If only I knew where the stop button was and could put an end to all these self-created nonsense.

I am sorry.

And if there's something I could wish for this NY, it's strength.

Just got back from the OUO concert w Guy Johnston playing Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. The latter brought back so many memories, the music reappeared in my head, I found my fingers twitching my lap, and unconsciously smiled at all the passages which I messed up some 5 years ago. 5 years! It was the first time I sat and heard the OUO, instead of playing in it. There were 15 celli, and I wondered how we managed to play Berlioz with only 6 in Scotland then. The playing wasn't spectacular and the soloist took ages to settle, but it was a fabulous concert, the Dies Irae ringing through the Sheldonian, the audience enchanted and applauding so generously by the end. Somehow the music here is just much more satisfying, both in making and attending to it. That sort of generosity and joy that is always present here, I've somehow never really experienced back at home. I really miss playing. But for now, I shall be sad and sod off to read Raz and liberal perfectionism on a Saturday evening.