Remember that Stress I Mentioned . . .

I'm just thirty minutes out from my comps/quals and I am stressing. I'm a ball of stress. I barely slept last night . . . part of that had to do with a 16-year-old son coming in super late and leaving super early . . . but the large majority of it is this meeting in a couple of minutes. 

I slept maybe 4 hours. Eventually, I got up to read my novel for a bit, and made some coffee . . . found the coffee to be too weak so I added some cocoa . . . didn't like the taste so I added a huge dose of rum.

That rum helped. So did the walk with Sadie. The jury is still out on which had the more soothing effect. 

But this is more about friendship and support. I posted a while back on the term "I'll always be there for you." Remember? How I think it is an overutilized phrase and I don't think people know what they mean when they say it?

This morning, right there whilst drinking that delicious coffee/cocoa/rum I got a text from Will. Pre-dawn there's a text from my classmate Will. Haven't seen Will for months. MONTHS. BOOM got that text that says, "Good Luck!" 

Then a second later I hear from Andrew. Same thing. Andrew makes sense. He's been helping me prep. Still, it was good to hear from him so early. He's in London or Ireland today, he probably wants to sleep, instead, he checked in. 

Then about an hour later . . . Anne chimes in. That was rare too. 

These are the only remaining people from our 20-person cohort. We all started together 3 and a half years ago. I'm going through Quals first. I need to remember this when they go through it. 

Julie wrote too, and then some others from work and life. Just about everyone I wanted to hear from is "there for me." That's what I think is cool. These are the people who were "always there"  . . . then there are the ones who say it who aren't. 

Need to remember that. In terms of self-authorship . . . being there for someone isn't just about not being too busy,  . . . it's not about saying it . . . it's about the actual "being". . . not the sentiment, but the actual act. Felt good. 

I'm that much closer to having this done!