closer

right now i am staying at a classmate's house, crashing on the couch.  there were times when i felt that i might be overstepping my welcome in her life by taking up her couch...seeing as how they only have one couch, it's in front of the tv, and one of the housemates likes to watch the tv.  but today changed my mind.  now i only feel gratitutde for this couch.

people go through the same thing in different ways.  or different things in the same way.  or different things, in a completely different way.  and it's okay.  because here's the key to life.  it's all okay.  all of it.  sure, there is a "typical."  but to say something is more prevalent, doesn't make it inherently right or wrong.  us weirdos are no better or worse.  just different.

i just realized that a classmate in sixth grade used to say that to me all the time.  well played.

what makes me sad is that these things exist.  either people, or programs, or parts of society that tell us we are worthless if we don't conform.  that we are failures if we don't meet their standards.  i realize i'm bordering on that hippie-dippy-love-everybody-crunchy-granola shit.  but that's the only way i can make sense of the world right now, and simultaneously find myself a place in it.  i think i'm okay with this.

i am so excited to be less than 48 hours away from never having to come to this goddamn campus ever again.  it gives me the heebie jeebies to be here.  like smelling a liquor that was part of a bad memory a long time ago.  instant gag reflex.  but, i guess i should relax about it.  if it wasn't for being here, being surrounded by these people, then isolating myself from these people, then going near the edge, so close to breaking...i wouldn't be who i am today.  and, while i'm not thrilled with the person i am today, i am content.  content and not completely jaded and filled with hate.   all things considered, that's pretty fucking good.

consumption

experiment:
no buying new clothes x 6 months.  EVEN if there is an amazing deal.  underthings are an exception.

it's a great day and age we live in, where we can finally learn of and experience the consequences of our excessive consumer lifestyles (via the interwebs): http://soundcloud.com/onpointradio/the-high-cost-of-cheap-fashion
it makes me incredibly guilt-ridden to think of how much i've been part of the problem.  i love thrifting anyway.  let's see how far i can take this.

psych it to me

i am currently rotating through psychiatry.  i had no idea how emotionally draining it would be.  well, i manage to get through the day unfazed.  but as soon as i get home, i have to shut off.  on the weekend, i completely crash and sleep 12+ hours (the norm my body needs is around 7).  instead of studying, i watch the same episodes of my favorite tv shows over and over and over.

but i am grateful to have a preceptor who allows me to share my frustrations and fears.  i was hugely concerned.  there is a young girl on the ward who has paranoid schizophrenia.  like, scary bad.  like, exorcist bad.  when she was first admitted, we interviewed her mother at length because the patient couldn't give us real answers.  i won't forget that conversation with the mother anytime soon; the grief that was heard over the phone was almost palpable.  imagine you are told that your only child, whom you've watched grow up from a wide-eyed, smiling baby, is dead.  now imagine being told that every single day, for decades.  this is basis of this mother's suffering; that even though her child's body is breathing and walking, her mind was in such disrepair that the person she used to be is essentially gone.

this mother's grief was so familiar.  i felt myself welling up during the phone interview.  that night i couldn't sleep.
by no means am i saying our suffering was one and the same.  but it was just familiar enough, that it opened up psychic doors i had closed a long, long time ago.  closed only for the fact that i hadn't the conscious tools to properly deal with that kind of loss.  i couldn't sleep.  i couldn't study.  all there was left to do was shut down.  and so i did.  the rest of the week was sleepless, making coming to the ward an agonizing exercise in futile gesture.

i tried sharing my confusions and fears with a classmate, hoping that perhaps just the act of sharing would bring about some peace.  but it wasn't until i was able to converse with my preceptor that i felt some relief.  i learned from him that the last thing anyone should hear when grieving is, "you should."  like, "oh, since you're just a student in this situation, you should use this time as an opportunity to learn to develop proper coping mechanisms."  "oh, you shouldn't feel bad about it because there's nothing you can do."

all nice sentiments.  but to tell a person in mourning that they "should," is like tying another psychological weight onto a balloon that they're trying to release.  and to hear that "'should' is inappropriate" -- that idea coming from a licensed professional was greatly relieving.  i was hugely concerned that i hadn't the proper mental tools to control myself.  that because i couldn't heal myself, i in turn could never become a healer to others.  that because i was emotional, over-empathetic, weak, i just wouldn't cut it.  that the past few years have been all for nothing.

one thing that i am appreciating more than anything in psychiatry is how important this idea is: there is no one reality.  everything lies on a spectrum.  to put things in black and white is an incredible disservice to others.  we, as rational people, must acknowledge the spectrum of human morality, social statuses, economic resources, spiritual beliefs.  otherwise, it is a slippery slope to losing what shred of commonality we all share.  it was a slippery slope that lead, for instance, to nazi germany not even a century ago.  it is our duty to help everyone, regardless of who they are or what they believe -- else, we are no better than animals.

in regards to my own grief, my own truth, my own spinning top locked in a safe...i desperately need to believe that it is still malleable.  that who i was in the past will not define who i become five years from now or prevent me from doing what needs to be done.  on this particular path i am traveling now, this hope has had many chances to grow.  repression might not be the worst choice here.  after all, if you don't open the box, who's to say if that cat is dead or alive...

this interview is everything

a man after my own heart.

so much for that to-do list

in the name of the "healing process," i've given myself free reign to piss my life away. i have had so much free time on this rotation. i have chosen -- well, "chosen" -- to spend it curled up on the couch letting my loneliness wash over me with hulu in the background. i say "chosen" in quotes because it wasn't really a conscious choice formed from reason and logic. it is just bad habits which are easy to fall into when all you want to do is shut yourself off.

i started my morning today watching clips of brian regan, a comedian. non-stop giggles. i started to feel myself lift out of my funk. but no, that was simply readjusting the bad habit to another level; i ended up listening to his standup and playing dr. mario all damn morning.

i finally fled the house at my preceptor's invitation to visit her horses. it was interesting how just a couple hours at the community barn felt like an entire day. around these beasts, time ceased to matter. all there was was their deep hoofbeats, and the cloudy sky. to touch their hides and palpate so much MASS underneath was a wonderment. the old one, her back hocks were stiff and deformed by arthritis. there was a cloudy fog in her saucer eyes. and yet she stamped her foot repeatedly, impatient for treats like a small puppy. watching the people ride and groom and feed their horses was hypnotizing. the barn smelled impossibly sweet. it was a different planet.

it was a good reminder to keep going outdoors. when people disappoint you, there is always the natural world. it is so much bigger than our petty shit. it is a force that will continue long after you and i are dust.

when i hike through the forest, i am struck by the number of gigantic redwood stumps jutting out from the soft, fern-laden ground. they look unmistakably dead. but in fact, they are teeming with innumerable shrubs and weeds springing from their every crevice, and their sloping roots are cloaked in green and white moss. they stand apart like neatly and tenderly kept gravestones of giants -- stoic, immovable, as if they had been forged in paleolithic furnaces. i am moved by the intent of it all. where the rest of the forest seemed in gentle chaos, each stump contained terrariums, carefully curated by unseen forces. i am afraid to approach, lest they break like glass threads. during one walk, i instead placed my hands upon a younger redwood. i expected to feel a hard tree; i felt myself falling into the red bark, as if it were made of foam. ...maybe i was projecting -- but maybe, maybe, i actually felt it -- a feeling of the fluids of the tree moving downwards, skywards, around and around. a force driven by not the evaporative action at the level of the leaves, nor the capillary action of roots soaking up water from the ground, but of the Divine Organizer, the Breath that takes our universe and molds it into the discrete. i found that i was listening. listening for an answer. expecting this tree, this random tree in a random forest, to give one to me. it was a foolish thought, because there was no question to begin with. and that's why i was unhappy. i was searching for an answer with no question. i had convinced myself that i was searching for something, and that without it, i would not be whole. the truth is, i was never in pieces in the first place.

if i don't write stuff down, i'll forget it!

thursday of our first week, ani and i checked out the eureka jazz festival. a nice hour or two of wandering.

sunday, i took a walk through the neighborhood, only to discover an honest to god forest smack in the middle. i'm really looking forward to exploring it, hopefully on a non-rainy day!

monday, i took a dancefit/zumba class in town. i went to the local hippie store, Wildberries. i tried to donate blood but my hematocrit was too low. i decided i was going to do the master cleanse up here (hippie influence? haha maybe i am too impressionable).

tuesday, ani and i went to humbolt state university to talk to the premeds there. it was really fun talking about osteopathic philosophy and ideals, and then what we've found to actually be true in the real world. well, fun, and bittersweet. maybe that's another thing that draws me to this profession. it's not cut and dry. very bittersweet for someone who embraces the original philosophy.

afterwards we went to a sushi restaurant in town. i was a little dubious of the quality, and the menu really did not have the variety that i've come to expect from a more...metropolitan sushi restaurant, i suppose. but i was pleasantly surprised. there were also a couple hippie-type rolls on the menu, vegetarian for ani, including a "locally foraged hedgehog mushroom" maki. 'twas interesting.

this past thursday Dr McCaffrey and her partner took me, ani, and another student out to dinner. everyone was really entertaining, and it was wonderful enjoying their company for a few hours. i learned that there's an unspoken rule that lesbian potlucks are vegetarian. and then there was a funny story about a rodeo. the chinese food here is definitely subpar, haha.

so far i've only gone through two days of DIT. :( two out of 15. the pressure to do well is enormous. i've had a terrible time concentrating because of my broken heart. but i hope i'm learning to not let my emotions rule my life.

eureka

i'm in mckinleyville for a month for my OMT rotation. somehow i should be much more excited about this. my mind isn't all here though. or, i should say, my heart.

i signed on, however, expressly to write this thought: eel river IPA is so. goddamn. refreshing.