JOURNAL. February 2026.
... (18.02.2026)
I wanted to basically restart my journals this year, but never got around to writing something last month. To be honest, most of the time writing anything about my life just feels wrong to me. Why treat any of it as worth writing about, let alone reading? But I have to engage with my life existent. Anyways, I'll try to remake my journals page soon and then I might get around to updating my site. I should. Just a question of having the time and feeling it's actually important enough.
Yesterday I found out that a classmate of mine had died. We were not particularly close, but I had overall pleasant relations with him. I appreciated him, as he would always give a friendly nod and/or smile when we passed ach other on the way to/from the sociology faculty. It was nice to have someone who expressed friendliness towards me, in a way that seemed genuine rather than forced positivity, without demanding anything of me. I think he dropped out at the end of last year. Either way, he's gone now.
I've lost a lot of classmates. One in high school. We dressed up in red, his favorite color, to commemorate him. One at the first university I went to. Not a direct classmate, as she was a couple years above me in my major, but we were in the same extracurricular circle. I remember her drunk and crying to me at a party, asking how I handle a certain personal issue we had in common. I didn't know (and I still don't), so I hugged her. After, she tried to drink more, but her friends stopped her and put her to bed. About a year later, she died by suicide. A classmate from my philosophy program at my current university also died by suicide in our first semester. The next year there was a tragic death of a university employee which shocked everyone. (I won't get into more detail, as I don't want it to be super easy to find out my information.) Now this. It all feels very strange.
Yesterday I also learned that my father seems to be on the decline. Several weeks ago, as it turns out, he woke up with sudden memory issues, and has only recently returned to something like normalcy. He has not gone to a doctor; but it seems to be dementia or possibly a stroke. Based on what he has mentioned about finding it more difficult to speak recently, I wouldn't be surprised if it were the former. Of course he has not been to a doctor.
I found out when he sent me an email explaining why he hadn't responded yet to an email I had sent about something which has been a huge rift between us for years, but about which he seemed to make some reconciliation. His reassurance that "I still haven't forgotten about this" is perhaps the closest thing to tenderness he has ever expressed, at least one of the few. It feels weird. He is slipping away just when we were beginning to be "close" in any way.