me: 1 mosquitos: infinity

I don't have Allie's talent, but she's my inspiration for this one...

patience

The word patient comes into my vocabulary many times a day. In less than a month (hopefully) that word will leave my mouth nothing short of a hundred times in twelve hours. Already I think of patients that I've had and I imagine hypothetical patients and their problems. I worry about them. Hope for them. But what about the other kind of patience?

My kindergarten teacher's mantra was, "Patience is a virtue." I didn't know at the time what a virtue was, but I was told many times patience wasn't something I had. I didn't want it either. In some respects I still don't. I'm not a patient person. I always want things to happen and I want them to happen now. That's why I talk fast. I walk fast. I go places and always get there early so we can start things early. I like to get the show on the road and always keep moving. I like being busy. Spending my time doing and not waiting. Reaching goals. Crossing things off lists. This is why growing up is so weird for me. I've always wanted to be grown up. In sixth grade I was ready for college. For the majority of college I felt ready for the real world. I was in a hurry to not have a curfew or parental rules. To have my own place. But while I always want things to come, I never want life to pass. I pretty much always love where I am in the moment and don't want life to keep going by so quickly.

I have patience in funny areas. I am unflappable in traffic. I don't get annoyed or pound on the steering wheel or wonder why did this happen to me (ok, there are exceptions. but usually), however, bad/distracted/indecisive drivers boil my blood. I always want grades back immediately and want to know the right answer now, yet I can wait months for vacations. I'm the delayed gratification queen so I love to look forward to things. Yet, when it comes to tests, I want them to be over - I don't want to study one more day or sleep one more night on it. They get to the heart of my perfectionism and needing to know the effect to my cause. The whole reason I chose nursing is I like results. I like to see what I do and the effect that it has on the situation. I'd prefer it to be good, but good/bad/otherwise I need a result. I hate waiting around for something that might not come at all.

I'm not in a hurry to be 40, get married or have children yet I sometimes feel if I don't rush to attain those things they'll illude me. Its like the adage, "a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush". It's like well, if I get them now at least I'll know I have them before I die. Except I don't want them now, I just want to know I will have them later. So I like guarantees. I can have infinite patience if I know what is coming (like a vacation). I know at the end of traffic I will get home, so I can wait it out. But tests- I like them over with because I'm never 100% sure which way they're going to go.

A big test is coming for me. My patience has been tested in every way possible in the wait to take it. All of my ugly neuroses have come out in this perfect storm of stressful occurrences: moving, getting new roommates and saying goodbye to an old one, copious driving in the narrow district roads, sharing my room with an illusive mosquito clan, test scheduling being out of my control, being subject to application rules I wasn't privy to, and not getting to choose a date that I wanted to test... Not to mention feeling the need to be constantly studying, being on the dawn of a new career and longtime dreams coming true. In many ways my plans hinge on the outcome of this exam, but most of the important things in my life and goals I have don't. A good outcome just means my patience can move on to the next big thing, a bad one means it will be tested again, and for longer.

I don't like that this perfect storm has brought out nearly all of my less desirable characteristics that I do my best to keep hidden, and makes me expend even more stressful energy wishing these little demons weren't a part of me. We can't chose our demons, but we can do our best to acknowledge and quell them. For now I need just a few more hours of patience so I might one day have patients to further test my patience. Oh, the wishes we wish :)

abilities

I have an uncanny ability to tell in a millisecond that I've put a shirt on backwards. It feels like everything is spasming and all is wrong with the world.

Yes, I'm aware they design them specifically to be worn the correct way. But I'm saying, I think I'd know before you if I put my shirt on backwards.

...but I have been known to wear them inside out unknowingly.

mint pinch.

Today, thanks to a serendipitous coupon, I bought Hershey's new peppermint patty "pieces" (ie: reese's pieces, but for peppermint patties).

I put them in the freezer. It's like the tiniest little girl scout thin mint meets the wonderfulness of M&Ms... And it's total heaven. I recommend it for the girl scout cookie off season.

And yes Hershey, you can pay me to be your spokesperson.

hobbies

Someone asked me what I like to do for fun the other day. I had to stop and think about it. I know what I do (go to class, be in transit to/from class, do work, eat, sleep). I know what things I do when I'm being bad and not doing one of those things (be with people, drink, go places). But what about when I'm a nurse and I have four days off? Before I can work myself into the ground by excessively signing up for over-time, I'll be on my new nurse probationary period that they call a residency. And I'll have four days a week where I've left work at work.

So, just what will I do with those four days? Kind of an important thing, because aside from who you are to your friends and loved ones and what you do for a living, your hobbies kind of define you. I'd like to get into yoga. Keep my room neat. Run, obviously. Go to the smithsonian museums...even the ones no one knows about. Go for long walks. Read at a coffee shop all day. Maybe I'll write a book. Get into backlogged scrapbooking activities that were, ironically, scrapped due to lack of free time. Make that quilt of all my college tshirts.

So many people have to combine their hobbies with their jobs because they don't get enough time to do things outside of work... but for the six months before I go back to school or am allowed to have overtime I'll have free time. This concept, this illusive thing I've dreamed about. I've been waiting 20 years for free time, ever since I started school. And now that I can see it coming closer I don't even know what to do with it. I really just don't want to waste it.

secret

sometimes I go to bed without eating dinner because I love good food so much that I stay up late looking at recipes and then I'm more tired than hungry so I go to bed.

don't worry. lucky thing I make a habit out of happy hour so I've always had some cheese and crackers.

cheese and crackers fits in almost 3 columns of the food pyramid. you know, wheat, dairy, and then whatever is inside of those crackers that makes them taste so good. like garlic(=vegetable). thats the same number of columns as macaroni and cheese which is a totally acceptable dinner.

the voicemail paradox

I hate voicemails. really hate them. I love the idea of getting a text of what the person said so I can just read it. I don't want to pay for this visual voicemail service so I am stuck ignoring voicemails. When someone leaves me a message and I can see who it was who called, I'll just call them back. Sorry, didn't listen to your voicemail, kindly explain again.

The exception to this is when I don't have service or my phone is off... I suppose a voicemail is fine if a text really won't do. But, normally, I groan anyway at taking the time to call in and listen when I'm just going to call them back anyway.

Except today. I was in the gym (no service area), and saw I had a voicemail when I got out. I am in a time of many possibilites. Aside from unrealistic ones like the president is calling for my advice on something or it's the internet calling to say I won a contest I entered for a trip to Thailand for me and my three closest friends I actually have very exciting normal possibilities. It could be HR calling to officially offer me that job. Or it could be the management company of my (hopefully) future residence to tell me my application was approved. Or that it wasn't. Or that they need something for me right this minute.

Right now though, verizon's voicemail is down (at least for me and two others). The fact I don't even have a random number to try to call back is making me crazy. I'm slowly dying inside of absolute curiosity. Sure, it is after business hours. Sure, it's probably something I don't even want to hear. But it could be SO great.... And I'll have to wait patiently until verizon restores the service I never falter in paying for. Oh, the suspense.

moderation.

things I could eat straight from the container:

ricotta cheese

peanut butter

honey

dip of any kind

cream cheese

sweetened condensed milk (at least I don't drink it straight from the can, ahem, Paula Deen)

cottage cheese

pesto

sour cream

ranch dressing

red pepper jelly

frosting

guac... if you count that as something that comes in a container.

i do, however, prentend to be an adult and use restraint. most of the time (I did just polish off the ricotta cheese container...oops).

bottom line: life without dairy, sugar and oil is not a life worth living.

wavelength.

Sometimes I find a blog that expresses exactly how I'm feeling except they do it way better than me.

Found it today. Totally how I'm feeling... except the success part. I haven't even started my career but somehow things just going according to the plan seems to count as success for me. Aaand naturally, I think I'm going to die. And, so, I talk about how lucky I am. But I don't say that to sound like a braggart. I'm not telling you I'm lucky because I think you should know, I'm telling you so you know I'm grateful. Because, as of now, everyone who reads this blog is special to me... so me feeling lucky has everything to do with you.

♥

favorite things

old houses

black squirrels

sunglasses

an ice cold beer on a stiflingly hot afternoon

unexpected afternoons off

spiral staircases

the right song at the right time

leaves crunching under my feet

reading well made books

the sound of ice skates coming to a stop

the high 60's

the 1920s

puppies and their smell

turrets

sailboats

the smell of fall

bright, blue skies on crisp, cool days

the sound of skis on fresh snow

the perfect word choice

creaking of hard wood floors

the breathless feeling when you jump into a cold pool on a hot day

the first bite of something so good when you are so hungry

relief.

I take comfort in daily hassles. It's slightly twisted, but when all things go my way I feel unsafe. Like it must be the end. Silly, I know, but as the adage goes, "when everything is coming your way you're in the wrong lane."

I am so lucky. I know this. And I guess I feel better about things when I suffer minor obstacles because they enable me to pretend I'm not the luckiest girl ever and keep the laws of probability at bay. So when things were going so so right with romance, tests, jobs, homes, and friends I was becoming more of a basket case wondering when the streak will end and my delicate house of cards will swiftly capsize.

I waited for the bus for forty minutes (according to the schedule, four should have come in that time), and then the one I got on followed a detour. This detour threw a fork in my travel plan as I'd only researched my planned path of normal bus routes. So I walked, in search of a bus stop. More than a mile of sweaty walking, arms full of bags, I arrived at another bus which was of course off schedule. And I exhaled.

so much beauty

This quote would have made me feel better if I'd heard it 3 years ago. Every year around this time I think a message to my former self saying, 'you'll find a prayer that you can say that will give you peace for the day.'

As if he heard me doing this last year, all day long I heard his soothing voice in my head periodically saying simply, "so much beauty."

***

“God Is present, loving, smiling, having received our loved ones. They are in his presence, illumined by his smile, and warmed by his love. His kingdom is enriched this day, so enriched by so many beautiful souls. So much beauty. Our world is so empty without them. Our hearts are broken, our sadness immense, our tears so abundant… We live our sorrow together.

“We need You. Please come and touch us. Fill us with courage, calm our discomfort, give us signs of Your presence. We need to feel that You hear us as we offer You our prayers and we try to overcome our grief. We ask You, we beg You, come.”

Father Mychal Judge, after the TWA Flt. 800 crash

running through my head.

Anniversary (noun) - the annual recurrence of a date marking a notable event

These things are easy to think but not to share. It is with great trepidation, I hit "publish post" knowing this could be read by others.

I can still hear the sound of my world view shattering. It's not a dramatic sound whatsoever, it is swift and finite like that of an egg dropping to the floor, and absolutely a figment of my imagination that assigns sounds and pictures to everything. The visual though, is different; my delicate little glass world was squeezed too hard by a firm hand... It didn't fall into a thousand pieces, it kept its spherical integrity (think broken windshield), but the one piece became many I'd have to refuse together with time.

Here's a conundrum: do you go on, unchanged after a truly heartless act, or do you let it change you? Do you at least acknowledge you are different or pretend you're not? This idea of letting evil "win" is troubling. I'm sorry, I didn't know we were playing a game. I don't know the rules. Is this force of good ever really the loser when it's up against evil? Maybe I don't know what it means to win or lose, then. We hear all the time, we can't let evil win. I don't know what that means.

The struggle for me seems to be how to go about this most difficult day. Should I break my routine or continue with it? I like that this day has come to mean gatherings are formed of people who understand, who come to just be. together.

I think about what I want as a legacy after my own death. Most of all I want to be remembered. Have everyone know how much I love them. So, then, is that the answer? Aside from letting our loved ones know we love them, letting those we've lost know we remember them, what they've gone through, and acknowledging their potential? I'm reading this book about the Vel D'hiv roundup and its message is clear: remembering is powerful. Remembering seems to be the only way to move forward when we can't change the past. Always remember, never forget, right? It just doesn't seem like enough.

What about letting them inspire you? For me, it's those 32 people with their 32,000 gifts. It's almost insurmountable to try to think what I could do on their behalf. Although I know many people who've suffered from the same hands that killed them, I didn't know them. If they are anywhere near as wonderful as their friends, their classmates, and their families, though, they were so worth knowing. What about recognizing the wonderful things about the people who are still here? I hate that we sometimes only see the dreams and gifts of the people around us after they're no longer here. I know these things about my friends, but what about the people I'm not as close to? I'd like to open my eyes a little more.

I should be studying right now; studying microscopic evils (infectious diseases), but I'm not. I'm pondering human suffering. Loss. Tragedy. Violence. Surviving. I'm sad. I'm wondering whether or not it's a good thing that a great act of evil has become woven into the fiber of my being and that I wouldn't even change it. Of course, if I could have prevented it from happening at all I would have... but if it was going to happen I wouldn't change having it affect me. It gives me perspective. It can, on a rainy day when I can't find motivation, be a sense of purpose... paying it forward for those who can't. I would never change having "been there" because the cosmic order of things would have put someone else there instead.

We have trouble with senseless acts because they prevent everyone from feeling safe. We hear time and again that life isn't fair, but it really messes with us when we see it being true because it prevents us from ever feeling safe knowing it could be us at any moment. This is why some organizations believe it necessary to find a reason why a higher power made this happen, and insist on letting us know through protest. They can't handle the truth that everyone is equally vulnerable to life's unfairness (although it plays out far from equally in the end), and spend their lives terrorizing ours because they want to construct a false bubble of safety in their own ridiculous and arbitrary rationalizations that perpetuate prejudices. I want to vent about their atrocity and simultaneously not mention them or give them any attention because then they are winning. There it is again. Losing a game I'm not playing. Ask any three year old what he thinks when he lost a game when he said no to playing and he'll scream, "NO FAIR. I SAID I WASN'T PLAYING." And back around again, with things not being fair. We're always playing this game of life, and it never is fair. It's all a continuum of chance that we have only some control over and only hindsight has the answers. That's life in all its wonder, I suppose.

All I know, though, is on this anniversary, I remember. I love those we lost and I love those that survived. I admire the strength and courage. I'm constantly inspired by those I see and their triumph over adversity, in this tragedy or others. I'm filled with love, hope and faith. I don't understand and I can never go back. But I can remember.

Eternal Flame

You know those fireplaces, the gas ones? They have that little pilot light. I have a pilot light inside me. I call it anxiety. For the most part it is there, keeping my wits about me, keeping me alert and using common sense. It's a good thing, I suppose.

I also have an overactive imagination. I consider this the wind within me ( I know, I laughed as I wrote this totally awkward metaphor. cue wind beneath my wings. corny much? but still, it's true). It takes my mind on magic carpet rides into exciting hypotheticals. It can, on occasion, blow me over, but I like windy days just fine. Usually it remains in light breezes to brighten my life and make everything more enjoyable.

Every once in awhile, the world throws some gas my way. Sometimes it is related to an unfortunate event or a particular week of the year, but sometimes it comes seemingly out of the blue. This, when combined with a pilot light creates a fire. I can ride out a contained fire. But, if the wind picks up the fire surges and all I can feel is fear. It too shall pass, the wind does die down eventually, the gas burns out and the pilot light is left as it is.

There is one week of the year, where the wind gusts with negative hypotheticals as a result of unpleasant memories; the perceived dangers everywhere throw gas on my pilot light and I feel as if I'm looking at the world through paranoid schizophrenic lenses. I approach the week with bated breath. Every year the fire roars a little less, the pain of memories of a world shattered soften ever so slightly and the world seems a little less evil.

Not to be cliche (or exaggerate greatly), but I love life, humanity, our country, my undergraduate university and our nation's capital as much or more than the next guy...and maybe this is why those evil shadows seem even more threatening because all of these gifts are so lovely. I love it all, despite these unavoidable shadows, but hope someday I won't see the monsters lurking in every shadowy corner.

Good Friday

Good Friday always confused me as a kid ("Why do we call it Good Friday if Jesus died?"), but most things in church went over my head. For someone who has a hard time sitting in class without taking notes (even when it's material we don't need to know...), I never paid all that much attention in church... or maybe I did and it didn't stick. I'm not particularly proud of this, but my remediation of Christianity has given me some direction on my journey to finding religion again.

So today it is once again Good Friday. I haven't thought much about Good Friday in the recent past because we never had it off in college so all of the sudden I'd realize it was Easter. Not that I'm saying it should be necessary to have the day off to appreciate it, but we tended to miss holidays where we had to attend class and forget to observe them. Last year I didn't pause as much as I would have liked to consider the meaning of these days in the eyes of faith. This year I'm poised to reflect, and my "major paper" will certainly give me the motivation to be doing anything but work on it.

What I like so much about the Christian story is that we can always draw parallels to our own life and our own suffering. That's the point, right? It is supposed to bring us closer to God because He's suffered like we have. I like to infer from this story that He doesn't "call" people to heaven to be with him, but mourns their death like we do (wouldn't it be silly if he gave Jesus life only to call him back in such a heinous way?)... I realize that's just one view, but it's the spin I like the best. That's another thing I like about catching on to religion a little later, people don't need to know I'm absolutely catering religion to what works for me. I like the idea of Saints because if I'm going to pray, I don't always want to talk to God (how Catholic...). I believe in miracles. I like some of the tenants of Buddhism and Judaism. My roots are and always will be firmly rooted in the Episcopal tradition, but I think it's really taken 24 years to really, truly, actually believe in any of it and I don't want to confine my beliefs in any sort of structure.

I've digressed... In this group of Christian landmarks, (Mardi Gras, Lent, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, the Last Supper, Good Friday and Easter Sunday) I identify most with tomorrow I think, the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter. The awful in-between time, the time when you've lost someone or something horrible and life changing happens and life goes on in an eery silent sort of way, like in a movie when the loud music ends and your ears ring as you struggle to find out, "what now?". Everything is the same, but it feels different. You sit, suffer, and wait for life's next move. The next move in this case of Easter is pretty astounding, and in terms of time elapsed is pretty close to immediate gratification.

At the end of this story we get what all people have been seeking for thousands of years: Proof. Proof that God exists. Proof He's watching, proof of His love, and proof that it's not all for naught and that there is a reason to believe. Funny that within all of the ideas of faith alone being rewarded, God in His infinite wisdom knew that what we wanted most was proof, and now that it's been almost two thousand years since He gave it to us, we're still looking for it.

I know that for most regular church go-ers this is the same sort of thing they've been hearing every Easter for their entire lives because these aren't new and unique revelations, but they kind of are for me. I zoned out until I was ready to hear it I guess, but I'm ready now and it makes them special because I feel like I've connected my own dots. I have faith.

hypochondria.

I laughed out loud because this is me pretty much everyday. Just ask cinderella.

and i hate lol catz.

tummy ache.

I ate too many jelly beans.

...we grow older, and yet we never learn...

Night Owl

"Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree." Antoine de Saint-Exupery

-and-

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Edgar Allan Poe

That's what the night feels like to me.

Except when I'm outside and alone, when it feels like:"'Oh my God, everything is dark and mad and violent'; it doesn't leave my head." Woody Harrelson

soul mate.

I have a song that's mine. When I need it to, it completes me. I can listen to it on repeat 100 times (and I've come fairly close) and notice something new about it every time; it never loses its luster. What I like most about it is its immunity to negative association. When I hear it serendipitously I always feel good. Rather than remind me of the state I was in when I last sought it out, it reminds me of feeling better. Free. Whole.

Everyone deserves such a mate. What's funny is that it chose me. I heard it once and let it go with a 'meh', and it kept coming back, there for me, until I realized what it was and that I needed it more than ever.

red.light.green.light.

Robin Hood tells me fairly often that he doesn't like grey area. He prides himself on not seeing grey unless he has to. My life, (except apparently when it comes to group projects), is grey area. I like the shades of grey in things and they comfort me.

Sometimes though, I miss the absoluteness of childhood. I remember when things were either right or wrong; traffic lights were paramount examples of the concreteness of things. Red means stop. Green means go. Orders came from the powers that be, and provided you had consistent parents, it was clear what would happen when you crossed the line from right to wrong. Laws were laws and you didn't break them because you just can't break laws. The simplicity of this life is something I miss from time to time. I'm just realizing that I'm more than a little bipolar about grey vs. black and white (isn't that ironic...) and that as I'm getting older, I'm valuing decisions that only involve two choices more and more. It is so much easier to decide rather than deliberate, consider, weed out and choose. When there are only two options, your decision is made once something becomes better than the other.

It's annoying that as we grow up and become more intelligent and experienced we're always creating more choices for ourselves. Things aren't right or wrong, they're situational. You can decide how you feel about something, only to add a context that makes you change your mind. It's no wonder we're indecisive as young adults (and old adults), and often seem frozen like deer in headlights with possibilities: we have so many.

I can't blame Robin Hood for trying to make everything he can black and white when the alternative is paralyzing numbers of options. When red means stop, except when it's blinking (which means stop, then proceed with caution) or has been red for five minutes (and means it's broken so proceed with caution when able) then it's not all that different from green, which means proceed with caution, except when there is an ambulance behind you (when it means stop) or someone runs a red light (when you should put that caution to good use and stop before you hit them). How can we move forward when there are so many pathways there? Won't some of them, inevitably, take us sideways? Is there a direct route of dichotomous choices to take us where we want to go? I think even Robin Hood would agree there's not. So it is and will continue to be: complicated.

serendipity.

Awhile back I had a patient who was young, in his mid twenties, which was memorable because I hadn't spent much time on units that get patients younger than 50 very often. I remember he proudly announced it was his birthday when we came in at 7am to introduce ourselves, a trait you don't normally see in twenty somethings - this much pride, in fact, gave him the air of someone four times his age. He asked if it would be okay if some friends and family came during "patient siesta time"(quiet time enforced from 2-4 to ensure patients get some rest despite the commotion of the nursing station) because it was the only time they could make it. We told him it would be fine.

As we brought him in a piece of cake (you see he was going NPO in just a few hours for surgery the next day) and clapped and sang in a makeshift choir of nurses, he grinned (and you could tell this was unusual, it was easy to see he was "too cool for school" on the outside). But he and his family were celebrating. What were they celebrating? His car accident.

An unusual thing to celebrate... a car accident. But you see, it was perfect, because he sustained no visible injuries and claimed upon regaining consciousness not to be in any pain. Protocol requires tests to rule out insidious injuries, so they performed a battery of tests not otherwise indicated. When doing an abdominal CT, they did indeed find damage. It wasn't from the car accident however, no, it was a tumor. This tumor was quite large (8cm), and was at just the right point to be taken out before it started to wreak havoc on his organs. What could have been fatal in just a few years was found because of serendipitous bad luck, and that birthday which could have been one of his last will hopefully be one of many, many more.

Lucky.

These days, when I'm at the hospital I'm on a surgical unit. I pride myself on feeling grateful for the many gifts I've been given without needing to be reminded and not a day goes by that I don't realize how lucky I am. I do absolutely get bogged down with unimportant things from time to time, which is why I like nursing. If there is a day that goes by as a nurse on a unit like mine where you don't have to pause to give thanks at least once then we're spending our time in very different places. I try to think of ways every day to never lose sight of the fact that the people I see at the hospital are going through one of the worst (if not the worst) time in their life, and the day I do it will be time for me to move on towards a different venue for nursing.

Every patient reminds me how lucky I am to have my health, my friends and my family, and each case gives me a new way to count my blessings and be mindful of how quickly things can change. I admire their strength and their courage and hope that if the tables were turned I would be as strong as they are. Please, though, don't misunderstand: I don't pity them at all. In fact, I realize daily how much I have to learn about life in general; they teach me how to be a better, braver, nicer person in their own unique ways. I can only hope to return the favor by making their day just a little more tolerable.

Today, though, instead of being grateful to be spared a car accident, personal violence, organ failure or chronic disease, I want to take a moment to pause and be thankful for something I take for granted 99.99% of the time: my skin. 'Skin integrity' is a buzz phrase thrown at nurses from day one- it's something we've grown weary of being concerned about (have you ever seen a nurse manager come out of her office waving a piece of paper saying, "HAPU. WE GOT A HAPU. GOOD GRIEF, PEOPLE, THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING?" If you do, run.) But you see, this is the status quo for good reason. I see a wound, tunneled, deep, wide open and grossly infected and know it didn't take long to get that way. It wasn't long ago that the skin that is so mangled and angry looked like mine, except now it will take months to heal, if ever, and it will never be the same. As I run my hands smoothly over my body, pain free and without obstacle I marvel at how put together it is [knock on wood].

I say, sincerely, thanks.

syndicated.

Do you ever think about what would be happening if your life was a sitcom? When I was little, whenever I was doing anything stereotypically age and gender appropriate I would pause what I was doing, turn my head to the side and smile at the (pretend) camera like the child stars in the opening credits of sitcoms (full house was my inspiration). In order to quell my fears of the wrath of mom or dad I used to play that sappy "teachable moment, I messed up but I learned from it and you guys still love me" music in my head as we hugged it out after the delivery of the punishment. I guess childhood was my very own imaginary Truman Show...

Whenever the main character in a sitcom grows up to a new stage, she/he/they get a new theme song, new friends, and a more up to date wardrobe since they've been stuck in the same stage for about twice as long as normal kids to re-attract new viewers. It comforts me to imagine the new "cast" as I approach life stage changes, and it always proves amusing to compare the real thing to what I'd imagined they'd be in hindsight. I watched Zach, Kelly, Screech and Slater get new friends in Saved By the Bell: The College Year (yeah, only lasted one season), and Sabrina the Teenage Witch also got all new friends when she moved on to college. Even though these friends weren't the old ones we'd grown attached to, the benefits of real life mean your old friends aren't subject to contract negotiations so they'll (hopefully) still be around once you get your new ones.

It's funny though, the 'in-between' time after college and starting off in the job world is a pretty untapped market for sitcoms. Have you ever seen one that centers around law school, med school, or seeking employment? Could it be, maybe, that the stresses are legitimate (and predictable) and it's just not all that funny? I guess in TV land we jump from starting off college to having steady friends (Friends, Seinfeld), jobs (the Office), marriage and parenthood (every other sitcom) and only then when work becomes steady and life becomes more predictable can we find humor again. No one is laughing at the realities of staying in to study, babysitting for spare funds, grad school debt, unemployment and being the low guy on the totem pole...except for those of us there laughing nervously, hoping it works out for the best. I can't wait to look back at my new cast as I look towards the end of grad school and my first days as a real nurse. Perhaps my own cast of co-workers will be a little bit Mercy meets Nurse Jackie....

Cue the teachable moment music.

different strokes.

Growing up, I never, ever got to lick the brownie batter bowl. Granted, my mom didn't make brownies a lot, and I can't think of one time when she ever made cookies. I don't say this with a tinge of anything other than understanding, she worked full time, drove us around, made dinner; there just wasn't time for baked goods unless it was a special occasion, when it would be brownies or cake. We always had ice cream and store bought cookies, so I'm not suggesting we went without.

I remember one day I was at a neighbor's house - their mom was a stay at home mom - the very best kind of mom - and she was baking. She called us downstairs to come and lick the bowl. At the time, being about 8, this was a foreign concept to me.

"Come on! Before my brothers get there!" Beth had squealed. I was confused. I got down there and watched her and her brothers literally lick the bowl with their tongues, all three of them, like it was the last drop of water in the watering hole before the dry season. Mrs. Mom encouraged me to step in before it was all gone. I asked if it had raw eggs in it, as I had been so carefully trained. "Well yes, you can't really make good brownies without raw eggs. Why dear?" I dismally told her I wasn't allowed because of salmonella. She did her best not to stare at me in disbelief. "Oh, well that's good of you then. Sorry about that. We'll make sure you get a warm brownie before you go."

That changed things. Granted, even if I had been a bowl-licking aficionado like I am now, I probably still wouldn't have joined in. I developed an intense dislike of germs at an early age and never found myself able to share food with anyone other than my dad without gagging. But I didn't realize this phenomenon of licking the bowl was so widespread until that point.

Wanting to eat the batter of something delicious doesn't need to be modeled to be considered because of course we'd asked our mom if we could. But she always said no, because we could get sick. "With what?" "salmonella". Before I could even pronounce it, I was aware of this evil little microbe. This germ- and we know I don't like germs- was apparently present in all delicious uncooked things. "What does it do?" "It makes you toss cookies like you've never tossed them before. All day. And you want to die." Now as far as I know, my mom has never had salmonella. And she loves raw brownie mix. But to her salmonella might as well be kryptonite.

So, I inferred from that exchange that like most fun and delicious things, there was a forbidden aspect that prevented them from being enjoyed at all times. So, I was surprised when I found out that most people do indeed lick the bowl. I've spent the better part of my time after college baking so I can have the batter, making up for lost time and savoring every fingerful. Honestly though, the thought of taking my tongue to the bowl still makes me queasy with disgust, so I'm of course very dignified and use the spatula.

I don't mean for my mom to sound uptight or unreasonable. She has her moments, as all moms do, but I mostly think its funny that this forbidden act, perhaps the sin of all sins (and risk of all risks) that I remember from my childhood is actually something that most people do regularly. As for my mom, well, she did let us have ice cream for breakfast, which definitely counts for something.

and one day, things were different.

I've listened to my own heart and breath sounds a hundred times since I've gotten my stethoscope. Tonight, I felt some bronchoconstriction coming on, and rather than reach for my inhaler, I reached for my stethoscope.

I'm shocked. I heard stuff. Not even lung stuff, my lungs sounded fine. HEART STUFF! Mostly, when I listen to hearts I hear, "bumpbump, bumpbump", (if I'm even lucky) and because I'm a freak and a [self-proclaimed] murmur prodigy, I might hear "bumpbumpshhh, bumpbumpshhh." But thats IT. I mean, you can hear a mechanical valve with a naked ear practically, so I can spot those, but thats the extent of it.

Tonight, when I listened, I heard lub DUB, or lub dub or LUB dub or LUB DUB based on where I moved my hand. AND I heard my heart rate speed up as I breathed in. I've never heard any of those things on my heart or anyone else's.

Is this how it's supposed to work? One day, you just wake up and hear stuff?

footprints.

I went running for the first time in a long time outside today. It felt so good.

I wasn't able to run this time last year. I had hurt my knee. I was stressed out and going through a rough time. All I wanted was to run it out, so maybe I would be too tired to be sad or stressed.

Then, as my knee got better, I impulsively signed up for the marine corps marathon. Training was a bumpy road replete with setbacks and injuries. My life in almost all of 2009 was a roller coaster. I had some highs, and some amazing times, and I hit rock bottom lows and felt like a bottom dweller. I felt separate from myself, confused and off kilter and was trying to get the hang of this nursing thing which seemed to knock me down more than it built me up.

The only time I was truly happy in some stretches of last year was when I was running. My confusion and angst would bubble to the surface and pop, leaving their debris in my wake. Sometimes, I would even cry when I was running and arrive back home, 10+ miles later with nothing left...physically...mentally...emotionally. It was a nice change.

Running a marathon was a goal I'd had since I started running one mile with my dog summer evenings back in middle school. When else was I going to have the time but in grad school (well, maybe not the time, but a flexible enough schedule that would allow me to fit in 3 hour training runs), and when else would an exciting marathon run right by my house? I couldn't wait a year for my knee to get better. The time was then, 2009. This goal meant so much to me, I was impatient to achieve it... and I did.

The days I don't think about that marathon are few and far between. I'm all about looking for literary significance within real life, and the marathon is every thing symbolically and metaphorically to me that it sounds like. Despite my overwhelming sense of imbalance and not knowing, I pulled it together enough to complete that marathon. Every one of those 296 minutes felt heavy with importance (yet tense because I was so close, finally), and when I crossed the line, the pressure was lifted, and above it all I was proud of myself. (Well, to be fair, once I became more certain I wasn't going to drop dead, I knew that this particular rainy season had passed). Things seemed a lot simpler after that.

Now, when I run, I have a sense of relief that the goal has been achieved. I can run and not worry about how far I'm going. Maybe I'll run another, maybe I won't, I'll have to see. Most of all, I love repeating my routes. On occasion I'll step in a spot that must be exactly where I've stepped before, and a flashback overtakes me. I know how I was feeling that very minute I was last running to this beat or on this step and I feel it all over again. Even those tough memories make me smile, because I got through them myself. For every difficult memory, though, there is one of running the marathon; the innervation and excitement I felt when I was running it and the pride and joy I have looking back on it.

Things are different now. Nursing still kicks my butt and on occasion knocks me down, but it's not so one-sided anymore. I'm getting the hang of it, and finding myself surprisingly prepared for what's to come (and deliver my own one-two punch from time to time). I found the me I was missing, and I feel... better. More balanced. I'm truly happy even when I'm not running, and I think running showed me a happiness when I was having trouble finding any. I came out the other end of the tunnel, weathered the storm and I can't imagine having done it any other way than running through.

intrusive thought.

Just when I get in a groove working at the library the caffeine begins to wear off and my stomach starts eating itself.

It's times like these that wish I could have TPN and IV caffeine to minimize these interruptions on behalf of homeostasis...

...and then I curse Georgetown for giving me a reason to think that awful thought and say, "forget all of this work I'm going out to eat on this gorgeous day."

memory.

Scene: My Aunt's wedding. I'm four years old, the flower girl, and in a puffy white dress. I'm standing in front of my mom, a bridesmaid. About four feet in front of me, off to the side of the bride and groom, there is a microphone sitting on the ground to pick up the sound of the proceedings. Vows are in progress, meaning the ceremony is about 15 minutes in, and my attention has been gone for about 14 minutes.

Me: (to no one in particular, eyeing the microphone) I sure would like to sing right now.

Believing I could lunge for the microphone at any minute and regale the crowd with "Tomorrow" from Annie, my mother grabs my hand and gets a firm grip on my shoulder as she smiles radiantly at her sisters in law standing beside her (silently cursing her decision to ever get me a tape recorder...)

Roo and I did get this one, eventually. But my first one was red and more vintage looking circa 1988...

productivity.

There aren't many things I enjoy about being a student that I wouldn't trade for a salary, regular hours and leaving work at work. One of my favorite things though, is waking up early on a day I don't have class, going to school even though I don't have to be there and settling in to be productive knowing I will. I can say with certainty that I know I'll be productive because unless I have to, there is no way I'll be out of bed before 945 on a day I don't have class unless I have a ton to do.

So, I go to school, and rotate work sites. I treat myself to a warm breakfast and a latte and wait for the caffeine to work its magic and lift the fog, and when it does I embrace that feeling that I'm a rockstar for being up so early and get to work. I leave campus later in the day feeling smug and wanting to keep up the momentum when I get home... which is a 50% reliable prediction of what will actually happen when I get home.

Sure, until the fog lifts, I'm not studying... but I mean, looking at facebook is warming me up for looking at powerpoint slides and blogging is warming up my mind to do some quality paper writing... I promise.

motivation.

Sometimes, (and not very often mind you) when I do something just right I can hear the sound of a baseball bat hitting the ball in just the right spot with that perfect, crisp, crack and feel the home crowd roar in my head.

That's my real motivation for doing most things, for those once in a blue moon, hit it out of the park moments.

Taps

As I lay me down to sleep,

I do not count those wily sheep.

I think about the day that's passed

and all the skills I have amassed.

I do not think I hear a sound

except for footsteps on the ground.

I listen closer and I hear

a thoughtful sound that brings a tear.

At eleven every night

they play those Taps with all their might.

"Fading light dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.
From afar drawing nigh -- Falls the night.

"Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky.
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

"Then good night, peaceful night,
Till the light of the dawn shineth bright,
God is near, do not fear -- Friend, good night."

wishes.

Today I absentmindedly wished our freezer would lose some of its coldness so I could better separate the ice cubes from the ice rock in our freezer.

An hour later, the power went out for several hours.

Wish granted.

foreshadowing.

Have you ever had a moment that seemed innocent enough but looking back was creepy in its literature-grade foreshadowing?

I was in the supply room at a DC teaching hospital, the one where I do my clinicals (we'll call it DCTH), and despite having been in many of these rooms on no fewer than five different units, I noticed for the first time the morgue kits. Inconspicuous enough, in their blue plastic containers and sterile white packaging, just like everything else. I shuddered with their implications, and had a flash of having to zip one of the white bags over a person I had just talked to. I prayed silently I wouldn't ever have to.

And then, a few hours later, a patient on our unit had no pulse. Lucky for everyone, the kits stayed put and for now, at least, there is a happy ending. Although, I suppose, happy is relative.

egocentrism part II

Lindsay Lohan.

egocentrism.

Scene: University Transport Shuttle, 4:15pm on the Friday afternoon that kicks off spring break.

Aside from the regular riders, there are several students with large suitcases checking their watches to calculate if they are going to make their bus/flight/train. On the second stop, an undergraduate female struggles to board with her large suitcase that is too cumbersome for her to handle with grace. The driver waits patiently for her to get everything inside the bus, and the man in the front seat reaches down to help her with her suitcase. She smiles distractedly at him and whispers an entitled thanks. She sits down next to an older gentleman in the third row reading the newspaper and leaves her suitcase in [blocking] the aisle. She appears annoyed rather than flustered, and has an overall arrogance about her.

The bus approaches traffic, routine for this time of day, and the tension rises as the infrequent riders worry they won't make it where they need to be in time.

Gentleman (looking at the college student): What time is it, please?

She looks at him. She looks over at the girl on the other side of the row. She looks down at her purse.

Girl: What time is it...? What time is my flight? [long pause when she doesn't get a response] ...or do you mean, like, now?

She glances at the graduate student on the other side of the bus, as if for validation of the audacity of the question. The girl doesn't meet her glance. The man nods curtly at the latter. The girl scrambles to find her blackberry in her purse even though she's wearing a watch.

Girl: Oh. Well, it's, um, 4:20,

She says with a scoff, and stops as if mid-sentence as if she had something more to say but thought better of it.

Man: Thank you.

confession.

Sometimes, when I'm exhausted at the end of the day, I see things in my peripheral vision that aren't really there. They're usually bugs. Except lately it's been every day. Starting in the afternoon.

Also, when I get REALLY tired, when I move my eyes from one side to the other the picture stays burned on my retina for a millisecond creating a laser effect like the hockey puck on tv.

So, either I am too utterly exhausted to process visual images... or a nighttime schizophrenic...

...maybe both?...

bygones.

Is it better to forgive but not forget, or forget but never forgive?

Can you ever actually, forgive and forget?

Just wondering.

in like a lion.

The beginning of march is never any fun. Tension builds; everyone is testy, tired of cabin fever and relentless chill, ready for the warm sun and long days. The only thing that keeps congenial politeness is the imminence of vacation... and then overnight, everyone turns happy because a break is upon us. Paradoxically packing flip flops and bathing suits while wearing uggs and long johns, we prepare for a much needed change. Overnight, people shed their layers in exchange for a bright cooked-lobster burn as the aura of coconut sunscreen and cucumber aloe follow them for the rest of a week. Some are left behind, grumpy still about the dreary and missing out on a week of warm, but soon enough everyone returns ready to glide out the end of march, friendlier and more calmly.

We grow tired of winter and embrace spring, the days get longer, and we are revived by being awoken by tweeting of birds at 6am when just a few weeks ago we were akin to the north pole. We're waking up from hibernation and making decisions; dating, breaking up and getting engaged. The annual baby boom begins (seriously, April-June), a string of birthday celebrations commence and weddings pop up on calendars like flowers in bloom. We get an isolated warm day (or two...) to bring us outside of our homes and offices, squinting, chubby and pale and our moods lift...and with a barrage of sweet jelly beans and chocolate bunny eggs march is out like a lamb, our moods much softer, friendlier, loving.

...Unless you're in grad school when you're just in the eye of the storm...

validation

She wondered if that person was intentionally mean to her.

"No," she thought, "you always take things too personally. It's all in your head."

She had respect for that person. That person had poise, grace, humor, maturity.

She felt she could learn a lot from that person, but still, she wondered why she felt so un-liked when it was so unprovoked. Attempts to reach out were ignored.

She found herself obsessed with what that person thought of her because she couldn't win...

until one day she just stopped. Friendship attempts were halted, perceived value discounted. No longer noticed, no longer cared.

Months later, someone commented.

"That person is so mean to you. It's so weird."

She was innervated with validation. She knew it.

And then she wondered why...

insomnolent

I'm all caff-ed up and I don't know why.

I waited all week for this peaceful Friday evening where I could finish my weekly assignments in no particular rush, lounge, and catch up on some illusive rest.

After a night of belly laughs with my favorite fellow navigation mistress over the inside jokes of the physician and nurse sides of human sexuality I was a little behind schedule. It's 0100 and I've sent my last email with its obligatory attachment and should be on my way to bed.

My eyes are tired but the gears are still whirring methodically behind them. They aren't as efficient as they could be having been thoroughly exhausted earlier in the day with the vacuum packing of additional knowledge in the moments before a test... they are allowing misspellings and poor word choices through the cracks... but they continue tirelessly not allowing my body a moment to regenerate.

A week of thinking momentum cannot be stopped on a dime. apparently.

Fractions.

There is something about this time in life, and people are becoming either attached to an other forever, or deciding quite suddenly that the way things have been going aren't right and initiate a parting of ways. It seems almost polarizing - where are all those people in between?*

A nurse I was with on the labor and delivery unit this summer was in my nursing program just a few years ago, and she said it decimated the couples in her class. I thought it would only end up affecting me (because, you see, I was the first person to lose my other), but no. Slowly but surely nearly all of the unmarried couples in my cohort have split (there are a few exceptions, and all but one cohabitate).

Some have gotten back together, some have found someone new (with what time?), but where many of us were happily coupled when we started we find ourselves in a different place now. Is this par for the course for our age group, or have we changed? It's jilting to see all of the unexpected splitting, like land mines on our weekends, replacing our complacent selves with zombies the following Monday. Some were inevitable, some were our own doing, and some fell from the sky like a kingfisher. The pain feels close even when it doesn't hit personally because it could so easily be my own. maybe because it seems like it just was my own. Best case, it's right, or for the best, but it's never easy in matters of the heart. Even superficial is relative when you're dealing with the vitalest of organs. Regardless of whether you're the hurter, the hurtee or both; if you're human the sting of a split is inevitable.

***

Not that this is the proverbial end by any means (I hope!) but for now, I got what I wanted. Lucky for me what I want hadn't ventured too far away and I "fished my wish". What we have isn't perfect, nor will it ever be; it's a work in progress. It's new and it's old, it's novel and it's broken in. I'm getting to know me2.0, and showing her off as I fall for him2.0 just like I did the first time. It's bumpy and hard but we've never had it any other way. In a phrase: it's worth it ♥

I am the luckiest.

*we're doing our part to fill in that middle. its lonely here, just us, but at least we have each other.

blustery day.

nostalgia. Start at 4:55 for my favorite. [continue to 4/8 for the heffalumps and woozles...]

the intro here is straight childhood magic.

"Cristopher Robin: Pooh, what's your favorite thing in the whole world?
Winnie the pooh: My favorite thing is me coming to visit you, and then you ask, "How about a small smackeral of honey?"
Christopher Robin: I like that, too. But what I like most of all is just doing nothing.
Winnie the Pooh: How do you do just nothing?
hristopher Robin: Well, when grown-ups ask, "What are you going to do?" and you say, "Nothing," and then you go and do it.
Winnie the Pooh: I like that. Let's do it all the time."

rhymes with puck...

Like an alcoholic, I was a denier. I denied my overuse of curse words. I thought I could quit anytime and with minimal effort. Turns out, it's not that simple. Once certain words have come into your vocabulary, it is hard to get them out without a dedicated effort.

This is day 8 of lent, and I've cursed five times. I don't need to curse, and I've cut out consciously selecting curse words... but five have snuck in. I did need to be more specific about what I am considering a curse word, because I'm so heavily monitoring my verbal output I'm cringing as I let out less offensive words. I decided that I'm allowing crap, darn, jerk and idiot. And in conversation I allowed myself to use "bitch" because it was a direct quote (although this is hardly the most offensive word). I think I'll allow hell also... it's a place, right? .

Interestingly, my problem words aren't the majority of George Carlin's seven dirty words-- I only use three (but I don't use the p word unless someone has angered me and I'm stating emphatically that they've really, er, ticked me off)... but in the seven words/phrases you can't say on tv, I do use three of them regularly (and all three were the ones I let slip -- calling someone a gluteus-maximus hole, dropping an F bomb, and hyperbole'd a fecal synonym). I have some work to do. In addition to the seven, I added the longer homonym of dam, the opposite of blow and another term for female dog.

Does this make me a Lenten promise breaker? Ultimately, it would be nice to make this a lifetime promise because I don't need to use these ugly words, so I have no problem extending my Lenten time a day for every mistake. I do, however, recognize the utility of these words as pain relief, so I think the next time I stub my toe (outside of Lent) I'll let one out, but only because it's free and satisfying pain relief...

A penny for your pinafore?

I was in the gym at school on Monday and the basketball court had been overtaken by munchkins. One of them passed by me in a bright yellow mesh pinny. The whiff I caught in his wake took me right back to elementary school... snowball (dodgeball) Fridays, and Wednesdays where they would give us 20 minutes to run around the track as many times as we could stand it, bombardment, kickball, stadium rounders, german batball... all of which (except kickball) I've come to discover were made up by our gym teacher since I couldn't find the rules on the internet, so you won't know what I'm talking about...unless you really like Kurt Vonnegut.

The smell is something I can't describe, but is apparently universal for pinnies worn daily by sweating prepubescent kids. It's not a foul smell per se, but it is distinct, and boy does it take you back. The best days in gym class were a) after we split off from the boys and no longer had to share pinnies with them, and b) the day after the pinnies were washed so you didn't have to wonder who they'd been on...

Incidentally, I learned that pinny is short for pinafore, and is a kind of dress-like apron to be worn over a dress, but was more modernly adapted for the sports attire...personally I always thought they were called pennies.

Time Machine

Apple's Time Machine software has had a paradoxical effect on my life.

Thanks to a problem with my laptop, anything plugged into the USB gets wrongfully ejected in the eyes of my mac even when it hasn't been touched...so this means if I leave my laptop unsupervised while it can communicate with USB storage devices, it will ruin them because it will convince itself that I've wrongfully pulled them out and reinserted them, meaning they will no longer run having had their memory corrupted. I would love to get this fixed, but like a five year old going to the doctor, my laptop works flawlessly within the force fields of Apple stores.

(When are the going to open up that genius device to the general public? The Luke Skywalker grade Wireless iForce, to make your apple products work in your home like they do in the stores...)

Anyway, I've digressed. Because I don't leave my external hard drive plugged in I sometimes forget to hook it up every few days to have Time Machine backup my computer. It would be in my best interest to do so, so it's not like I consciously decide not do it; I just don't always think of it. Time Machine takes it upon itself to remind me how long its been since I've plugged in my drive, allowing me to see how quickly my life is passing me by rather than allowing me to go back in time to enjoy the way things were in the good old days.

25 days since I last plugged it in? No, I swear I plugged it in no less than three days ago. Seriously? 40 days? 40?! Sheesh. Time flies... no thanks to you for reminding me, Time Machine.

65 days? I KNOW I'M GETTING OLD, OK? I DON'T NEED YOU TO TELL ME!

Locomotion.

I love trains. Somehow they instill much less anxiety than flying, and everything about them is just so relaxing to me. Because I’ve flown so much more often than I’ve had reason to go on a train, until my trip to Europe the train did instill a lot of anxiety in me because I just didn’t know how to navigate them. How long will it stop? How will I know when to get off? What if I can’t get off quickly enough? After Europe I came to appreciate it because of all that it offers, and stopped having flashbacks to scenes from "Fried Green Tomatoes" (2:55). Rather than getting to see our country’s finest six lane roadways, you see woods and bodies of water. You aren’t burdened by traffic, and you can go the most direct route possible. I simply adore the convenience of the train.

These days it breaks my heart that it isn’t more economical to take the train or I would take it so much more. There’s a certain old time glamour to the train that makes me feel more connected to the past. My grandparents just returned from a train trip across Canada leaving my grandmother disappointed. It simply didn’t have the “Dick and Jane” era charm that she’d remembered. The dining car was just that, not the social scene she’d remembered with laughing and networking. There was no music and dancing, no getting to know the couple in the next cabin over. "Things just aren’t like they used to be," she mused.

Medieval Times

Do you ever think about the point at which you would have died if we didn’t have modern technology? Sure, it’s morbid, but until yesterday I really thought I was the only one who thought about it… but not so, my mom definitely does too.

I’m never sure where to draw the line… should it be the civil war, or just the 1920s? Or, what about back in the days of King Arthur and Guinevere? The cavemen? I usually just decide arbitrarily depending on my mood, but tend to settle for “medieval times”.

Two months ago, my mother herniated three disks in her neck leaving her unable to get comfortable outside of bed and with a stabbing pain shooting down her arm. She was in bed working from home for seven weeks. Just last week she finally got surgery to replace the worst of the three herniated disks. She felt better almost immediately, and thanks to two surgeons (orthopedic and neuro) and an anesthesiologist, post op was distinctly less miserable than the two months before.

She was doing her best to undo all the hazards of immobility she’d acquired, so we went for a walk around the neighborhood. She asked what I thought would have happened if she had been born 100 years ago, and in that moment I knew we were made from the same mold. We decided blood letting was a given, perhaps several rounds, and pondered if they would have known it was a neck issue – would they have treated her arm instead? She probably wouldn’t have died, unless she got an infection from contaminated leeches or something, but she likely would have been bedridden for the rest of her life… which knowing my mother would have ended with her being institutionalized from having a mental breakdown. How grateful we are that she was able to have the best of modern technology then because her life has resumed to better than it’s been since her neck starting getting bad two years ago.

When would my moment have been? Well, I was born a month early, but I don’t think I had any complications that I couldn’t have survived from. My lack of fasciotomy for chronic compartment syndrome would have rendered me unable to run, but if we’re going back 100 years, I’m not sure I would have been allowed to run competitively anyway. My wisdom teeth might have given me trouble, but I think they did tooth extractions (perhaps less humanely) back then, so I might have cleared that hurtle. I guess my medieval number hasn’t come yet (knock on wood!). Hopefully no numbers will come up anytime soon.

I’m not sure Roo would have ever been born, because I’m not really sure what happened before the RhoGam shot. Perhaps I would have had to watch my mom suffer several miscarriages until an A- child came about.

And my dad, well, despite losing the tips of his fingers and sustaining an arm threatening infection, somehow I think he would have been ok... I can’t say for sure but somehow I don’t think he couldn’t have beaten it… granted he might have lost that arm.

Room Service

This weekend while hanging out with my brother, I was reminded of one of my favorite memories… but it’s only one of my favorites because it’s been so long since it happened.

One summer, I believe it was the summer starting before the start of fourth grade, Roo and I became best pals. We’d had a rough patch from when he starting talking at the age of three (long story) until now, when he was six. Our parents were beginning to seem less reasonable every day, so we joined forces to make sure they didn’t try to put us to bed before dark. I loved thunderstorms, but he, like our beloved family dog Fergie, was petrified of them. Even though we had our own rooms, Roo had bunk beds, so I started sleeping on his top bunk so we could stay up and chat and I could protect him from thunderstorms.

Now to back up a little bit, Roo is (obviously) my little brother. These days he’s much taller than me and in his third decade of life, but he’ll always be my little brother. We could not be more opposite… to the point where I’ve considered we were up in heaven or wherever spirits are before they are born, doling out genetic material to make sure we didn’t overlap. We were often told we looked like identical twins (which annoyed me endlessly, 1) because we’re three years apart and 2) I’m a GIRL), but our similarities end there. Roo is musically gifted; I am not. I spent my early life with my nose in a book and Roo has never read a book in its entirety. Roo doesn’t speak unless it’s of the utmost importance, and I never stop chattering. He cried being dropped off at daycare, I cried being picked up…and the list goes on.

For the year or so before we started bickering again we got along famously. One night in particular stands out in my mind. I was on the top bunk, and had just gotten comfortable except I was parched. Roo had just gotten back from brushing his teeth and so I asked him ever so sweetly if he would mind getting me a cup of water so I didn’t have to get down. To my surprise, he nodded and went and got one as I opened my book (probably something in the “silver blades” series). He came back and stepped on the bottom rung of the ladder to hand me a cup of water. I thanked him genuinely and marveled (internally) at how close we’d become. As I got about halfway through the cup of water I started wondering when he had gotten tall enough to reach the faucet. Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard the faucet.

“Roo…When did you get big enough to turn on the faucet ?”

“I’m not.”

“Oh. How did you get the water then? Was there a stool?”

Silence. I leaned my head down from the top bunk to look at him.

“Roo, did this come from the toilet?”

And Roo grinned and nodded proudly.

Miracles.

I was reading an article today, and it really put things together for the way I look at things. There are certainly days where I just don't notice, but on most days I do see those things that are nothing short of a miracle. I get this sense of wonder, and can't help but feel so grateful for life in general.

I think of snow as a miracle. Somehow this water, which can be a liquid, solid or gas has a fourth form, a composite of liquid and ice in the form of a flake. It could come down as sleet or rain, and yet somehow we get snow.

The olympics are a showcase of miracles - we collectively roll our eyes at the sob stories they tell that highlight the obstacles the athletes have overcome, but it is nothing short of a miracle that they made it there. They are a success, and the mixture of hope and passion and motivation and skill combine to form a magic potion for a gold medal. Those with excess arrogance flirt with karma and often times pay for it -- ask Bode Miller and Lindsey Jacobellis about their past Olympic experiences. The stories like that of Dan Jansen in speed skating and Aksel Svindal in skiing are nothing short of miraculous. Sure, they have grit and heart and passion (not to mention raw athletic ability), and by calling what they do a miracle I'm not trying to sell them short because they deserve what they've accomplished and are every bit responsible... but isn't the fact that sometimes our performances exceed our physical capacities (and occasionally the laws of physics) because of our strength of mind at least a little bit of a miracle?

We are surrounded by miracles everyday, and Mr. Wikstrom is right... thanks to modern technologies our expectations mean we don't appreciate the little (and not so little) miracles we see every day. Whether you're religious or not, it seems wrong not to be grateful to whatever the force was that brought us here to appreciate them. Man walking on the moon, the hubble telescope, deep sea exploration, docking with space stations, breaking the sonic boom, heck, even xrays & MRIs give me moments of wonder. Where did this collective sense of excitement and wonder go? Why is nothing impressive anymore?

I think to an extent figure skating is a good answer to this. Ever since those judges got in trouble in Salt Lake City in 2002, the judging criteria got more stringent to alleviate accusations that things were fixed. I read this article (and it wasn't this one or this one, but everyone is talking about it...). They've taken the emotion and the excitement out of skating. When I see the scores, they mean nothing to me. The judges are secret and are unable to do their job without video footage. I don't think you should be judged on how you are in the millisecond analysis of your jumps because that's not why we watch. If I couldn't tell a flaw with my naked eye why should they be judged on it? Why as our technology has our improved, have our expectations?

What I have noticed is that falls used to be rare... and not anymore. In fact this year a fall-less performance seems to be a rarity and even then, I don't see the flawless and emotionally charged routines that I remember. There are so many requirements for the routines that people aren't doing things that they used to, and creativity is so much less important. I don't even know the american skaters anymore (I followed Sarah Hughes, Nicole Bobek, Tara Lipinski, Kristi Yamaguchi, Michelle Kwan, and Nancy Kerrigan year round and pestered my family with facts as we watched), and there was a time when they looked like real women rather than pre-adolescent girls. What's happened? Figure skating IS boring when you don't know the rivalries and don't have the excitement of an emotionally charged performance that could be a game changer because emotions don't matter.

Maybe its just the circles I'm in, but the olympics don't seem as big this year. Where is that big surge of pride when the US gets a gold despite being the underdog? Are we all too wrapped up in the recession and the political tug of war to get excited and be proud of our country? I just miss the patriotism and the appreciation of the cluster of miracles that are the athletic performances in the olympics... but really just miss the appreciation of all of life's miracles like we used to have (we landed on the moon!)...

Rabbit hole.

Thinking put me into a rabbit hole today. I've been trying to be more self aware, and doing so has had both positive and negative consequences. When I know I'm facing an encounter where it will be easy to be rude I repeat in my head ("be nice") and remind myself of the unending torment for saying things a little less than sweetly...even when they deserved it. I recognize immediately my conversational flaws (interrupting seems to be the theme lately... I guess I got sick of twenty something years of waiting patiently for my turn and paying the price...) and have yet to speak up in apology (although, I am sorry to everyone I was sitting with today at lunch, for shamelessly interrupting you repeatedly and then my hesitancy to interject to say I am sorry).

I have been pondering things so much lately that I'm (at this moment at least) incredibly attuned to how I'm feeling about every little thing, and this brings trouble because I immediately know how I feel about something...and sometimes I feel like I'm drowning surrounded by all my emotions and I get distracted thinking about everything so clearly.

Sometimes, when I'm busy, I don't really know how to take things and decide on it later; a kind of delayed emotional processing... but not lately. I feel everything much more readily...and it's had an interesting effect. I feel closer to God. Rather than having isolated conversations with Him at the end of the day or when I need Him, it feels like we're conversing back and forth all day. I kind of like it, and wouldn't have expected it. It's a new thing, and I'm still learning the ropes of feeling so much more connected. It's what I've been searching for and I can't get enough. While I do at times feel overwhelmed with emotion, it is so much better than the way I felt last summer... like emotions didn't matter and feeling was unimportant. I was detached and miserable. I had a long way to go in my way to figure out myself, and still do, but in doing so I'm feeling so much more alive and connected.

Maybe I'm finally taking the next steps of this spiritual journey I first embarked on in 2005.

Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen

Why is it that even when you like the water where you live, no water is quite as satisfying as the one that comes from your tap at the home you grew up in?

Judgment day.

When you worry about what other people think, every day is judgment day. I sometimes catch myself consumed with what people think of me. It's a dangerous cycle...because to a certain extent caring what others think of the things you do and say is a good way to make sure you are coming off the way you want to and are being a considerate person, a loving friend...but it can be easy to do this too much... and it rapidly becomes a maladaptive trait that has you striving to constantly to please everyone. Nursing has taught me more effectively than any other endeavor: you just can't please everyone, and your really shouldn't take everything personally because not everything is actually directed at you personally.

There are two kinds of people in this world: the kinds who replay encounters over and over in their head wondering if they could have expressed themselves better, and the ones who don't. I suppose we are at times (and with different people) both, but I really think we favor one or the other. I imagine that those who replay scenarios in their head also act them out ahead of time....or maybe that's just me.

The people who get on my nerves are the ones who aren't considerate. It's one thing to be a mean person or a bad egg, but those aren't the people I'm talking about. They aren't actively inconsiderate (and I do believe there is a difference), but they really just don't consider and don't realize things when it comes to others (as opposed to someone who thoughtlessly hurts someone repeatedly because they just don't care about others -- insidiously inconsiderate). They run late - not because they mean to be rude just because they had other things that were their priority when it came the time they needed to leave to make it on time. They don't think about how if you are coming to visit and they told you that you could park in their driveway to avoid a ticket that they will need to move their cars further in before you come. They do their own thing and seldom anticipate how the things they do might be perceived by others. They are reactive - once they see people being bothered they will usually adjust, but never proactively. It never occurs to them. If you bring up something they did that bothered you they just didn't realize that you felt that way. They aren't selfish people per se, but they do their own thing first.

I sometimes wish I could be like that and I wonder if that is why they get under my skin so much... but at the end of the day I'd like to be bothered by being overly considerate than be thought of as inconsiderate.

Teeming with Seeming.

Things aren't always what they seem.

Sometimes how they seem is better than what they are...because to me uncertainty brings hope... Yet I am never able to fully embrace it.

Is it worse to believe something is a better something than it is (but be tortured with not knowing for sure), or to find out that something is as you thought (but hoped it wasn't) and be tortured by dealing with it? Is ignorance bliss even if you know you are ignorant?

The worst is when you are sure things are the way that they are, until you innocently find out they are not. Really, blissful ignorance is just not knowing that you've got it all wrong.

Worry.

Worries come to me like words to a poet.

I worry about homeless people. I worry they might get sunburned. I wonder if they would be offended if I gave them sunscreen. Sure, I worry about them starving and freezing, but I try to at the very least worry about things I'm less sure other people are taking care of.

I worry about how I'm going to feel if I discharge a homeless person. I have to discharge them...they can't stay in the hospital forever. Except that part of me wishes they could.

I worry about discharging someone I know won't be compliant. You can only do so much, but at least when they are with you there is much you can do.

I worry about my future grandchildren and the kind of world they stand to inherit. I want to have several children and many grandchildren, but I also feel guilty. There already is not enough to go around. Except, there is, just not everyone gets to have it.

I worry about our country. Having spent some time not feeling the love, and then learning more and loving our country more than I ever did, I get scared because I don't know how things are going to turn out. I don't expect life to be fair, but I don't like enabling the suffering of others. I don't know how to fix the problems we have and that overwhelms me.

I used to stay up at night worrying, but when I adapted a que sera, sera approach I no longer dig worry holes that give me panic palpitations and insomnia, I ponder. I wonder, what can I do? At what point do I have to stop doing and put trust in the larger system? Is doing enough, enough?

Why?

One million times a day, I ask why. I ask it of myself, I ask it about others. Why did that idiot almost run me over? Why did I say that, I sounded like such an idiot... Why is she being so mean? Why didn't I think of that? Why me? Are these rhetorical questions?

I ask too many questions and I want to many answers. Maybe sometimes knowing isn't the best thing. Do I want to know why I was rude to the check-out lady, or is it because I assume the answer is that I'm not actually a mean person, I just was frustrated and didn't mean to take it out on her? I think we only want answers when we think we already know the answers. Answers can make us feel better, or vindicated. I want to know that the idiot who almost ran me over is not as smart as I am and a real jerk. But then, when we do get our answers, sometimes we were better off assuming we knew the answer, even if we end up being right. Reality doesn't change, but our innocence does, and sometimes knowing opens a whole new can of ponder-worms to torture us.

Symbolism.

Should we take the classic symbols of valentine's day as true symbols of love? I think if we look cynically at the classic gifts of everyone's favorite superficial commercial holiday we'll see that the objects we exchange perhaps aren't the best symbols of our love. [Dads -- this doesn't count for you. I love it when my Dad gives me these things :) ] All the below gifts were spotted at hotel check-out on 2/15/10 by women 18 and up.

A card

They say: A carefully chosen card can help a non verbose romantic express his feelings.

I say: You didn't want to try to verbalize your feelings so you overpaid for a card that will get lost in the mail pile unless you wrote a nice note in it in which case why did you spend money on this card in the first place? Unless it's funny. Funny cards are always worth it.

Chocolates/ Candy

They say: Everyone loves sweets. Give a sweet to your sweetie.

I say: Short lived symbol of love. Should I infer that your love, while delicious in the moment, is actually, in large doses, contributing to my untimely demise and making my body unhealthy and fat?

Flowers

They say: Give a vibrant bouquet that's as beautiful as your love.

I say: It's an expensive symbol of your love that makes me sneeze and will wilt too soon. Again with the positive symbols. Flowers are best served unexpectedly.

Balloons

They say: Happy Valentines Day

I say: Balloons? What am I, six? Unless its a bicycle made by Vince Vaughn, forget it. It's not even going to float for more than a couple of days and then it is going to slowly poison the environment.... just like your love for me and your thoughtless spending?

Stuffed Animals

They say: a cuddle bunny for your cuddle bunny.

I say: I love stuffed animals, but I only need one, and it needs to be durable so I can squeeze it when you aren't there... but a bear with a red tshirt that was bought at a drugstore that you saw in your peripheral view and made you remember to get me something, it's going to end up kidnapped by my dog*, and I'm not going to fight her to save it.

No, I'm not a total valentine's day hater.... I do think it is a good opportunity to be romantic with your special someone...but I do inherently dislike a holiday that alienates a segment of the population on purpose (single people?). I have actually never gotten any of the above mentioned gifts, either, so perhaps I'm not qualified to comment... I just think thoughtless presents are almost worse than no presents at all, and I wish everyone agreed. Valentines day should be about true romance, making new memories and strengthening your bonds, and so I guess if those things help so be it...just please let's not allow them to be symbols of anything other than a holiday fabricated by ingenious capitalists?

*Ok, I don't have a dog, but I do have an imaginary one until it would be fair to get a real one. I'm going to need more space than an apartment and a non-busy roommate/significant other.