Hi Anita,

I can understand the fear in you. A good government gives confidence to it’s citizens to grow better while a bad one will always shift the responsibility for their decisions to the citizens and the opposition.

Even my family and friends have been vaccinated and waiting for our turns for the final booster shots.

About work, The place that I am working at is an advertising agency. It is a mid sized company and has been good to its employees in the past but due to losses in the current situation, we were all either underpaid or have been given threats to be laid off if we are unable to bring business within a period of 6 months.

I am happy to inform though that my research paper which I worked on past year during the lockdown has been accepted by a reputed journal(within India) and will soon be published. And because of that I got some confidence in me and have started researching and finding out about my options for a PhD programme at a foreign university, I am evaluating my options based on availability of scholarships and also preparing for good Indian colleges as well.

The job is fine but it makes me overwork and underpaid(currently) so creates dissatisfaction in me. And I want to do something where I keep growing better. So, I am continuing to work here but I am trying to find better options.

About being afraid of love and intimacy, it is true. Because I unconsciously push even friends away. I have been afraid of doing that to people I love as well. But in all honesty, with the recent ex, I really wanted things to work. I had worked hard for a job in the same city as his… But due to pandemic, a lot changed. The place I was accepted for an internship cancelled my internship. Because of which I had to join another company online which wasn’t good enough. And since the lockdown here continued, so even during placements, I did not have a lot of options. So I chose whatever seemed good enough that time. I actually wanted to be in the same city, explore each other better, go on dates, hang out in each other’s places, have an experience of being around one another to know how life would be.

This I didn’t want with my first ex because I was afraid I might not be able to tolerate his anger issues, which was true… During the last year of our relationship, we often fought on small issues. We didn’t stay mad at each other for long but the fights were numerous. So I was actually afraid of a life with him.

But it was different with the last guy. But yes the intimacy issue exists. I have given time over it and thought about it.

I will have to work on it going forward. I want to have a happy life now on, life will always have challenges but I don’t want to be stressed about everything all the time. Some dept. should be peaceful, shouldn’t it?