The Envelope

I'm still adjusting to my self-enforced new outlook in life, my empty desk, and my empty bank account. While it's easy to say I'm going to let it go and roll with it and find peace in adversity, it's hard. But I'm getting there.

This morning I came in early to finish a paper that I didn't do because of the chaos of the robbery (henceforth to be known as "the incident"), and found a unlabeled yellow memo envelope in my mailbox. Inside was a note, written in subversive calligraphy pen and obviously forced script, "Taylor- Hopefully this helps." And 100$. Now I have my suspicions, and if it is who I think it is, they should not be throwing around that kind of money given the grad student lifestyle we lead, but I'll never really know for sure, and I can't well go about asking, can I? Thank you, my sneaky little good Samaritan. "I have always relied on the kindness of strangers."

Desiree says this is my week. That people will be right there buying me drinks and looking after me. Nick says that we have solidarity in our department, and that we don't like to see "one of our own" get shafted. They're both right. My faith in humanity is pretty damaged, but what I'm learning is that there are a few people out there that are just really amazing, and I'm fortunate enough to know them. And anyway, there are billions of people out there who have it orders of magnitudes worse than I do, and isn't that why I came to grad school to begin with? Now if I can just survive the semester unscathed, then I really might start to have faith again.

In the meantime, I can keep my mind off things by writing it all out. And I need this. I haven't seriously blogged since high school, and since I lost my book in the incident, I need a new outlet for my creative inclinations, and where better to do it than the pretentious, self-serving world stage of the internet? There's no point in being sad about my loss. It won't change anything. All I can do is start over, become better than I was before, and never look back. I can do that, right? Anyone can do it. I can do it.