Reflections of a restless eccentric

Today hasn't been the best of days. I have been very stressed out and anxious of late, and at that, on multiple fronts. For one, I have constantly been fretting over my family's well-being. Every time I hear of someone I knew being sick, I feel like the pandemic keeps inching closer to me, and that soon I will have to confront the harsh reality of a close family member falling sick, or worse, dying. On the other hand, with the lockdown, chores have once again become a time sieve in my life, and I am left with tiredness and the small interrupted remnants of an entire day. I worry about all the academic deadlines I have, and wonder how I will manage. If I will manage. The number of people I talk to has also gone down a lot, and some of the friends I usually call have either gotten exceedingly busy or extremely tired of listening to my woes ; and that has added to my feeling of being unmoored. As if all this wasn't enough in itself, the fault in our electrical stars decided to...

 As a toddler, I spent most of my time sitting in my mother's clinic. I neither had daycare nor doting grandparents who babysat me, and as a result, my mom juggled between her full time job and me. One of the first people I met in her practice was this woman with late stage esophageal cancer. I use the term 'met' rather loosely, because I never actually saw her. The first thing my Mom taught me before bringing me into the clinic was that I should never express revulsion at a human being's pain and suffering, no matter how horrible it looked or smelled. She said that if at any time I reacted or made a face, I wouldn't be allowed in to her clinic anymore. I complied. But somehow, she didn't trust me to see this cancer patient with half her food tract eaten away and not react. So anytime this patient made in appearance, I would be shooed inside. After she left, I would ask my Mom in curiosity: What was wrong with her? Would she get well again? Did she have family? ...