Just ramblings

 I have had a lot of thoughts in the last few months, heck even years. I have been neglecting blogging these days, mostly from lack of motivation. And with that, lost some of my reflections on going ons. I have had a lot of big life changes recently. Gotten engaged, then courthouse married, and now ceremony married. I bought a house, got a dog, passed my boards, found a new job, am now in my thirties. I technically hit a lot of "life milestones". Of course yes I am happy, I am content. But the predominant feeling is a sense that - life goes on. No matter the decisions you make, life keeps going along and we all get older. Time stops for no one and we must make the most of the short time we have on earth. 

Relationships has been the area of biggest growth for me, for obvious reasons. And I have come to the realization that truly my upbringing has stunted me emotionally romantically. Stephen had to break down all my walls and conservation about dating, he waited patiently for me to accept that we were even dating, he gave me space but was intentional about meeting. He pursued, he waited, he was certain about his own feelings. And I think that if left to my own thoughts and devices, I might never have found or dated anyone. I am lucky he waited for me. But yeah, he's lucky he found me too ha. 

I don't think marriage changes anything big. It simply announces and confirms what is already there and places a label on it for the rest of the world to understand. But the day to day? Exactly the same. I wonder what the future holds.   

Children

 Stephen's niece came to stay with us for a week and it was interesting... I have firmly realized that I am not very good with children. I think it stems from a lack of being around them in general. I just don't really know what to do with them. Rachael is a sweet girl and I think there is some lingering... trauma? or slight hole in her heart from having divorced parents and really never seeing her mom except for maybe 1 week of the year. And I, the now designated Aunt Rainbow Pancakes (a nickname I don't quite understand), am somehow one of the few older female figures she has in her life. It's unsettling. 

I had a lot of thoughts this week. Ranging from how spoiled would my kids be. How hard it is to say no. How I can worry about a kid's future that isn't technically mine. How Stephen is with kids. How to get a picky kid to eat different foods. How to entertain an 11 yo. How much technology is okay - and also how to model good behavior with technology.... I think, in the end, I do pretty well with responsibility. If there's something that needs to be done and I can do it, I generally can fulfill that role. But sometimes that role is a little ambiguous when it comes to kids.

I hope it really is different with my own kids in the future. I hope it gets more natural. 

blogging

out of nostalgia, I spent the last 30 min or so just rereading my blog. And I haven't even gotten to the end of all the words I've written. Accumulated over years (actually now I think it's officially at least a decade) of my life. And I am transported back to those memories. 

And the strangest, strangest thing is that rereading the words that I've written.... I've forgotten that I wrote some of those posts. And reading those words that I've written, it feels like my past self knew me more than I know myself sometimes. Those odd musings, those random thoughts, the strange epiphanies, they all become fleeting memories when the humdrum of life floods my brain and erases those moments. 

Perhaps I used to be more thoughtful back then. 

Do you ever feel like you change so much and so little all at the same time?

time of year

it's getting to that time of year where i have to start wondering about my future again.

where am i going to go
what am i going to do

but if i really look back on the past (omg) 7 years, i could never have predicted i would end up here.

it's all in God's hands.

and yet i worry. anxiously wondering what the future holds.

Choice

Do you believe faith and belief is a choice? Or is it something that is?

Is it like love, where some say it is a choice to go through with the actions of love even though you may not feel the neurons firing and the “feeling” of love?

Is attraction a choice? I don’t think so. Attraction and sexuality are things that simply are.
Someone that says I just don’t find so and so attractive has every right to say that.
But can you say I just don’t believe and that’s how it is. Or I just don’t love them, and that’s how it is.

Percolate

Sitting in a call room, kinda just waiting. Overnight in the hospital is a strange thing. Where nurses are still up, patients are still sick, but trying to sleep. I’m just waiting. Waiting for a patient to be transferred out the ED, waiting for a possible code blue, waiting for an admission. Waiting for my birthday too, I guess. Time passes by too fast. A year has already gone by. New faces in the hospital, people that I have spent so much time with and greatly enjoyed their company... now gone. It’s another year and I’m three parts tired and one part anxious.

I’ve been so busy with hospital and step and bf that I feel like I’ve missed talking to people. I miss my old small group. I miss genuine deep conversations about the meaning of actions and other strange considerations and pseudo analysis of people. Or maybe I miss God. It’s hard to tell these days. Or maybe  now is the time where I have realized that I am no longer drowning and just trying to survive and am looking around for something more. I’ve not been completely antisocial. But dinner parties and fun events are in no way a replacement for those conversations of knowing one another. If anything, only a bandaid.

What is that quote... do not let what is urgent keep you from what is important.
And I definitely have. Because so many things are more urgent than spending time to meditate and think on the trajectory of my life. Work and studying and tests and attempting to find happiness and investing time in people. But none of those things are as important.

It’s funny how often I pray for clarity, when I pray these days, because I just want to know. To know what happens, to know what’s right, or what to do, to be able to plan for things. But that never really happens, does it. I am envious of the ones who know their path so clearly. Or have greater determination than I to forge their desires into reality. But for that to happen, you know to know yourself and your desires intimately.

I’ve realized, in the past few months, just how many more flaws I have.
Indecision, fear, anxiety about everything, worry about the future, poor communication skills, a laziness that I battle every day, a tendency towards the familiar and easy.

I think for so many months, I’ve foregone all self growth for increasing medical knowledge and just superficial enjoyment of life.
Well. Saying my enjoyment of life is “superficial” may be too demeaning. More like worldly enjoyments of life? But even that is a little condescending.
Regardless, as my next year approaches, I hope there will be growth.

I pray for the Spirit to fill my life. And yours.

Mortality

It's no surprise that I'm around sick people because I'm obviously working in a hospital.

But two days ago, I heard one of my co-resident/friend was in the ED. Jokingly, I texted him, hey, you dying? heard you were in the ED. hope you're ok. 

He texted back, haha, not dying, but i'm still waiting for a lot of tests to be run. i'll update you more when i know more.

And I didn't think too much more of it. Until later when I hear he actually went to the ED for a partial seizure, and the CT head images showed a large brain tumor. And now he was admitted to the University hospital and waiting for a brain biopsy. 

He's not even 30, he's almost done with his intern year, and then he should've gone into ophthalmology. He's pretty much done with all of the bs hoop jumping to make it where he actually wants to be. And then boom, this happens. A freaking brain tumor. A tumor in your freaking brain. 

A couple of us residents visited him and he was laughing and joking and pretty honest. But underneath it all, you could hear his fear and worry. His life has been turned around. And one of the neurosurgery residents told him the prognosis was maybe 10-15 years. Like... fuck. It's not 1-2 years, but still. But still. 

And it's so unfair. It's so unfair. This always positive, so much fun, always has a joke, hard working person that has made it through medical school and intern year and is set to be an ophthalmologist... he is so young. He is my age.  I think it's hit my entire class hard because we all think about how completely horrible it is. You make it through all this trial with the thought that this delayed gratification will pay off. We don't go through all this training and studying because it's enjoyable - but because we want to make it to the end. And with all of this... what if he can't? 

What if his tumor is unresectable? What if he loses his vision? Or his motor function? What if he needs chemo and/or radiation and it's so debilitating that he can't go further. What if he literally cannot be an ophthalmologist? Would you even keep going if you only have so many years left? What is worth it? But then what would you do with your time? 

I told him I would pray for him - and he replied, I believe in the power of prayer and I think it matters more than people think. So thank you.

I don't even know. I am surrounded by mortality in the hospital. I don't even bat an eye when a code blue is called. This is a hospital, there are deaths. But we are on the other side of the hospital care - and I forget that our best laid plans are futile. We cannot predict the future. I forget that there is always something more important, something greater than just the time we spend here. It is so easy, it is so freaking easy to let time whittle away at my life. To get the urgent and emergent and fun things done. To live life in a breeze, to live in a way where there are only earthly cares. What to eat, who to hang out with, work thoughts, studying. It is so easy to let time pass, minute by minute, months by years. But oh, when faced with these kinds of questions... what is truly important? How can I live this life in a manner that I don't regret. What would I do if I only had 10 years? Are the things I do right now worth it? Is it worth worrying about these things in light of all of it? 

What is my purpose here?