I’m not sure it’s a great sign I’m posting here, but saw that I still get hits and comments so I thought I would. Having logged in after a long time off, I see that I have hit 50,000 reads. That blows me away. Thank you. I hope it has helped someone.
Unfortunately, the emails people sent me got erased so if you never got an answer to some burning question from me, send again. I know I used to get a lot of mails from pre-meds and med students and the like, wanting help on planning their lives with the crazy. I’m totally happy to help, for whatever I can do, but if you wrote me and didn’t get an answer, just write again.
I’m now working in an underserved community, doing womb-to-tomb medicine. It’s as good as it gets in the medical world, I guess, as far as people being a little more right-brained. One of the docs even gave a talk about his own struggles with the crazies, which seem to be much the same flavor as mine. It’s funny, I so admired him for being able to do that, but now every time I see him, all I can think of is that, and I know it’s just not a good idea.
Still doing the 80 hour weeks, though. I moved, and here they have seasons, and their winter was oh so cold. I hate the feeling of layers over all of my body, all the time, and always being cold. The days don’t shorten that much and I did ok, and now the days getting longer have made me a little funny – horny and too loud and overly energetic. I hope it will be just a little funny though. They seem to like me ok here, and I wouldn’t want to blow that by going all nuts. The one thing I am looking forward to at work is that they may let me run a DBT or some other kind of crazy girlz group, though I’m a little hesitant because the way I would approach things (melodramatic legend, myth, and metaphor) seems so far removed from the socioeconomic language of the patients here, and I do enjoy the palliative care stuff. It feels like a kind of holy midwifery to me, though I do hate the power of making people make decisions and messing with the course of their lives.
I still hate delivering babies, though. I can’t remember if I’ve written about that before or not. It always seems like I’m ushering in 80 years of suffering.
Things, on the whole, have stabilized, mostly due to medication, but of course, there is always the price of blunting. And getting fat. One of the meds, the one that makes me nice and cuddly, makes it nearly impossible to concentrate long enough to write. I have to keep away from thinking too much, and I do miss my sense of feeling, but the working so hard and long is good for keeping thoughts and dreams away. The patients I work with have often had such wretched lives that it helps me be grateful for what I have, for the blessing of being able to settle into a boring, mildly dissatisfied middle-class life. And that depth of experience, well, yeah, I do sometimes miss it, and do sometimes know that I’m walking someone else’s path, and have those grave feelings of not doing what I was put on this planet to do, and fear of being sent back next time ’round to do it right. But fortunately, modern pharmaceuticals can mostly keep that away.
So I’ll leave you with this.
for prodigal read generous
–for youth read age–
read for sheer wonder mere surprise
(then turn the page)
contentment read for ecstasy
–for poem prose–
caution for curiosity
(and close your eyes)
Thanks for reading.
My Sad Alter-Ego 