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.

Night Shift Vacation

I've been working third shift this week. It's amazing how tranquil the small hours of the morning can be on the unit. The lights dim and, as we walk down the hall, the only sounds are those of our footfalls and the occluded IVs chirping like birds chattering in the woods.

Patient interactions are softer, quieter. They raise bleary eyes when I wake them for vitals or glucose testing and immediately nod off afterwards.

During the day, my job is hectic, a continual scramble to stay atop of the endless tasks and requests. At night, I mostly mitigate patient squabbles: she won't turn her TV off, He snores-I want a different room.. etc.

The staff, too, is more seasoned, less gossip-girl petty and fun to work with. The team in general has a perverse sense of humor- befitting a group that works the 'graveyard shift'. Last night, one of the nurses taped little devil horns and paper pitchforks to all of the office supplies (staplers, pencil sharpeners, computer mice) at the nurse's station just to annoy the morning secretary, Anna. Anna's celebrity doppelganger is Dwight from The Office. She's incredibly pedantic. This is great for dealing with time clock issues but she gets worked up over the craziest details.

The nurses on the night shift have developed an art to annoying Anna. It was so much fun to watch her huff around this morning tearing down little paper horns. After about ten minutes, she settled down to organize her desk. She then went to fax new orders to pharmacy. When she lifted up the scanner only to find more horns, she bellowed, bellowed, "Okay, who did this? Paper costs money people! No wonder we're always overbudget! This is ridiculous, Who did this?" She then glared at everyone in the nurses' station as though someone had stolen her purse. It was awesome.

If I didn't know that I would be bored within a week by the routine, I would request a permanent transfer to third shift.

Poison Ivy

I went hunting blackberries yesterday before work in the hills beyond my house. Through the misty rain, the sun had cast a mauve glimmer on gray shale and the birds' loud chatter drowned out any stray noises from civilization.




It was a much needed diversion into serenity. My hamster wheel had been spinning furiously and stepping off reminded me of the bigger picture. Attitudes at work drive me mad but it's only a brief interlude. It will only be at most 10 more months until I'm back to school (fingers crossed!).

So I walked in the woods with dew soaking my sneakers and breathed in the absence of people. Coming up over a knoll, the sun beamed through the trees and from across the meadow. There, I saw the bush. Enormous, succulent and inky berries glinted in the light.

I made my way forward and noticed the wide jade green leaves that surrounded the fruit. Poison Ivy. I stopped a moment and thought about the symbolism, the correlation with my work dissatisfaction and my ultimate goals. I couldn't help but laugh aloud, startling a small flock of goldfinches into flight.

I continued to the bush, thankful in many ways, that I don't react to urushiol and I picked the berries.


And I made a blackberry, ginger compote for my salmon.