Laziness and Loneliness

I'm lonely.

When I moved back from the west coast to my itty-bitty industrial town, my life changed completely. During the subsequent two years when my time was consumed with caring for my mother, my smart, stimulating and worldly friends across the continent dropped away. I just hadn't the time to nurture our relationships.

I'm trying to create new stimulating relationships but apparently I'm weird.

My nursing coworkers, the pinnacle of education in this working class town, are consumed entirely with creating and raising families, getting married or engaged. We're friendly enough at work but I so miss talking with people about things beyond our immediate sphere of family and work.

Those who read, read Twilight and the Hunger Games. They tease (not maliciously) me about the books that I bring in and I can't find any interest in the antics of Belle or Edward.

Growing up here, I was the lonely little girl in the tree with a book fantasizing about evading the trolls below. When I left at eighteen, I discovered a wonderful world full of fascinating curious people who read, traveled, explored cultures, food and art, fought for environmental preservation and human rights. They celebrated their own uniqueness and seemed to appreciate mine. I swore that I'd never return to this area.

Then dad got sick and mom got sick and I again was tethered.

I know that the end is in sight; I'll be leaving in a few months and re-entering a world of more curious people.

This last year has been brutal though. Those who have applied to medical school probably remember how demoralizing the process is. You basically rip your life and history apart, present the pieces to anonymous adcoms and wait for them to decide that you're lacking. With the deaths of my parents and my relocation thousands of miles and several time zones away from my friends, I lost all of my social and emotional support.

Every time that someone I work with asked why my applications were failing, I withered away a little more. Trying to explain the immense competition involved came across as just defensive and it showed in their expressions.

Emotionally, I'm hibernating now. The acceptance that I received validated me in a way that I could have never predicted. My intellectual loneliness isn't so severe now that I know that it's finite.

I don't feel defensive anymore when people insinuate that I'm lazy because I don't plan on working through medical school. I can just wait a few short, yet impossibly long, months and I'll be with folks who'll understand that I'm not lazy.

I'm grinning now in anticipation. I know that I'm leaving an intellectual desert to conquer an ocean of knowledge. It'll be hard, I know, but it'll never be as hard as the last few years of dehydration. It can't be.

My Month of Scramble

I sold my mom's house last week; the buyers paid cash and are forgoing an inspection which means a fast closing. EEK. and Yay.

I'm scrambling to find new housing, storage for my parents' things that we're keeping, and all the little errands that one doesn't realize until that time of moving is upon them.


I received my second med school rejection, ironically from my #2 dream school. Bah.

Work is interesting. Last week, one of the patients developed a really weird icky crush on me. He followed me around and asked me every day to join him in a new activity. Play Scrabble? Go to the zoo? In all honesty, it was creepy because he was not mentally impaired in the slightest. Somehow it's easier to understand/think cute/tolerate a patient's romantic interest if they're elderly and demented or young and MR. I don't understand how a middle aged man could rationally think it a good idea to ask out the nurses/aides.

We had a mandatory aide meeting yesterday, a punitive grousefest. Apparently, the aides aren't doing their jobs properly, have bad attitudes and things need to change. This was all based on our recent Press Ganey scores. The nursing aides are the front line to patient care after all. Later, my manager pulled me aside, basically told me that he didn't have any problems with my work and asked me to 'keep an eye on the moods of my coworkers'. I don't really know what he meant by that but I felt manipulated nonetheless.

I love autumn. I drove to work today and noticed the trees preening at their reflection in the river. I can't remember seeing the leaves change last year. It's astonishing how grief and sadness can blind one to such beauty.

Rejected and Dejected.

I received my first rejection today and to my first choice. It had been a shoot-for-the-moon dream but it still stings. I haven't heard anything positive yet. I'm trying very hard not to be pessimistic.