Valentines Day is not a "holiday" for the single girl.
Furthermore I have always contested that you should let those people you love know that you love them more than simply one day a year. I have thought of 4 people who have my never-ending, I-would-do-anything-for-them love, and I would imagine that all four already know it - I tell them all the time.
Am going to have a quiet day with my 2 best kidlets in the world, probably eat some good pasta for dinner, watch a stupid romantic comedy and think to myself about how love is never really like that.
Because, really, love is all around me. It's in poems my brother writes, it's in the cheery messages my Sara sends me, it's in the handmade cards I got this morning. It's the eagerness my pigs get when they see me with carrots (ok...maybe, just maybe that's Pavlov, but give me my moment here). Love is snuggling next to wriggly 7 year olds in monkey boxer shorts and not only telling the girl how she's the most beautiful in the whole world but actually making her feel like she is. Love shows it's face in anticipation of those I will meet in time, and for new experiences I can't wait to live out.
Love is also climbing into a bed, after a long day, with the heating blanket awaiting me. Something I love anyhow. The earth is rotating at 1600km/h and we ride right along with it. Sometimes in the opposite direction.
.
Will Rogers said, "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." Even though I've been trying to do the right things for awhile now, I've still just been ambly trodding along. Not anymore.
A new year, a new life.
I just moved in to my new house and am putting away my boxes. I start my new job next week. I'll be leaving the ER after nearly 4 years, for a position where I'll use more critical thinking and take care of patients who are much more ill.
I have, for the first time in years, zero interest in dating, finding the right man, or having sex. And I couldn't be happier about this.
I've never thought I was "worth" anything and so now as I am reborn in a number of ways and have a chance to start over and fix the things, it's a wonderful feeling to let go of the past and embrace a future of my creation.
I can't wait to see how it all turns out. :)
So as the year comes to an end, I think of all the things from 2006 I am happy for.
love
rain
making lists
letters from friends
movie trailers
watermelon on a hot day
the last song of 'idlewild'
compliments
Elliott smiling and being happy
freckles
Ushpizin
Maggie in her pink sweater
good photographs of places I have never seen
melon-scented soap
documentaries
double chocolate chip frappucinos
yarmulkes
the interrupting sloth
my children snoring
unique business cards
the first kiss
good news
fountain cherry coke
jokes that don't quite make sense
helpful techs at work
the colour brown
hemp lotion
coincidence
heroes
anticipation of exciting things to come
well done, creative tattoos
spending time with Amelia
confidence
my aunt remembering for one more year
Freakonomics
a quiet, dark, soft place to sleep
Jonathan Safran Foer
ve'ata kadosh
wonton soup
patchwork hippie dresses
zuma
not having him here anymore
found magazine
rosie
npr news
warm chocolate chip cookies and ice cream
my brother's romantic proposal to his girlfriend
the way Bush sings "Glycerine"
cherry wood furniture
wind chimes
the Helskinki Complaints Choir
leftist refrigerator magnets
Hugh Grant
sitting outside in the sunshine
candles that smell like rain
English accents
pale pink nail varnish
Elliott snugling with me
twist endings you never would have thought of
homemade mashed potatoes
knowing my cousin is happy
finding letters in the mailbox
leisha hailey
knitted by hand
Amelia getting an A
fruit salad in bed on a warm sunny morning
rediscovering favorite books from childhood and reading them with Elliott
black-and-white photographs of people
unexpected surprises
stormclouds that look like watercolors above a field of vivid green grass
seeing my name in print
postsecret
sleeping in
Gene Kelly singin’ and dancin’ in the rain
tulips
making my children laugh
my mother's kindness
lightning
finding money on the ground
civil disobedience
survival
a universe of infinite possibilities
It's raining. I love the sound of rain. The smell of rain. It has always seemed so romantic. It seperates us from other things - not in distance, simply in existance.
I've had a few days off of work and have talked to only one person (outside of my family) in that time. I like the quietness. It envelops me. Comfort in silence.
I've been sitting here staring at these pixels on my screen for several minutes now. Trying to think of what I want to say. How I feel. Despite my assertiveness at work, my ability to yell at drunks and heroin users, I'm actually quite shy in real life. I avoid eye contact. I turn away. My personal life is much more difficult than my professional one. There, I know I am good at what I do. Here, in the quiet of my room, I'm not so sure.
I sit here, song over, quietly thinking about all the things I want. Warm sunshine. Someone who loves me. The ability to be really good at something. Anything. I want my children to be peace mongers like their mama, and to have caring and respect for all things. I want them to have confidence not to fear the things I do.
There's always that inevitable fear of rejection I think. Fear of not being good enough. Good enough for what? For whom? When have I ever cared about what society thinks? I tattoo my back, have children and don't marry, run away from my problems then write about them in national magazines. Society doesn't bother me in the least. They don't know me. They don't know what I think about, what I dream about and what I want.
Poet Raymond Carver wrote about fear in a way I could never.
"Fear this day will end on an unhappy note.
Fear of waking up to find you gone."
I was sad when I found out that he had been dead long before I was born and I would never be able to look him into the eye and find out where this fear comes from.
Maybe that's why I'm afraid. No one looks me in the eye to find out where my fear comes from. How can they? I'm looking away. Avoiding eye contact. When I bring a patient back from the CT scanner and I know something is wrong but I can't tell the family, I avoid the eye contact. For nearly 30 years now I've avoided it. Ashamed of what I know, of my past, of my present. Why do I care?
And maybe that's why I sit in my quiet room daydreaming about all the things I want to do instead of finding the confidence in myself to make them happen. I guess that's what it comes down to.
Wow.
I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.
So someone died today. Not an unusual occurrance in the ED, but different still. It was a man I had never seen or heard of, and we coded him for way too long before finally pronouncing him dead. In the years I've been there and the deaths I've seen, very few affect me. This did for some reason. I was relatively alright until his wife came in. The unbelievable love that she seemed to project on him was intense. It was a feeling that was palpable in the air.
"You were so good to me" she was saying through tears, kissing his body on his cold cheek. "I had so many wonderful years with you. You were the best husband I could have ever asked for" and on and on. I was near tears myself. I hugged the woman who I had never met and she thanked me. I told her that I had never been married and could not possibly understand. "You will get married someday," she said. "And then you will know. And I'd go through all this again to have the time I had with him."
The woman agreed to donate his eyes. So someone else would have the ability to see through his eyes...a way for him to live on. I always get excited when someone agrees to organ donation. I feel like I've done something good. Something helpful out of a death. Michael and I pushed his body through the dimly lit corridors in places of the hospital I've never seen - things that conjure up images of "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" - up to the morgue.
I came home to my empty house, hoping that she somehow manages to get through her night and the next several days. My children aren't here. No one to hug and express my love to.
Not yet anyway.
For now, I'm going to bed. Thinking of the ones I love, near and far. Miss you.
I feel like I'm becoming invisible.
people don't quite look at me.
don't quite look away.
what do they see?
or what do they wish they saw in me?
never even know i'm there.
the girl is back
from south carolina
where she visited her dad.
waiting at the airport
for the plane to land
a man on his cell phone
telling someone to
“let god take control”
and “believe in the power of prayer”
The plane pulls up to the tarmac.
I anxiously await Amelia stepping off
I wonder how the people felt in Athens
waiting for their loved ones
who would never arrive
who had fallen out of the sky
the power of prayer did not work
like some of the 9/11 victims
I cannot imagine
how bad it must have been
on the 312th floor
if the better alternative
was to jump
where was god taking control there?
What did Harriet see in him?
Or Dr Greg?
the tall, Maori looking doctor I know
who thanks his God and blesses himself
before eating cold pizza from the cafeteria.
his wife died leaving him
to raise 9 children
on his own.
what’s the use of praying
if there’s nobody who hears?
Dr Scott is the
blond, GQ doctor, younger than me.
who, this weekend, cut open a man’s chest
in front of me.
squeezing his heart
to see if there was anything left.
There was not.
leaving Chris and I
to clean the puddles of blood off the floor.
How did I get into this job?
The next day,
Chuck, one of the coroners,
comes to see if I am ok
just like he always does after I have a death.
he’s worked in EMS since I was in diapers.
and you can tell.
the chain smoking
coffee drinking
gray hair.
I wonder what I will look like at 50.
What my children will look like then.
Elliott
Who loves getting his As in school
running around full of energy
his thin tan body
he lays next to me on the bed
kissing my cheek
and telling me things
I only half understand.
It seems like yesterday he was
3 and spoke nothing.
no way to communicate.
I am still amazed at
the little things he does everyday.
Here comes Amelia.
She hugs her brother first.
Then me.
Showing me pictures
of the ocean and dolphins and
places I shall never see.
she tells me she missed me.
We come home.
Nothing changes.
Nothing stays the same.
It feels like I am an observer of life.
Not a participator.
That I am watching the world spin by
At 1024 miles per hour.
And sometimes it feels like
I am traveling in the opposite direction.
Start small.
A million things happening right now as I write this and you read it.
People having sex. Falling in love. Shooting up. Shooting someone else. Someone is taking their last breath, someone else their first. Children are crying for their mamas. Someone is arriving at a new destination, full of wonder. Someone else is lying in bed, awake, wondering. And here I am on the outside of it all.
A string of memories going through my head...holding my son for the first time is at the top. The way a needle feels when it tattoos my skin. Screams I hear in the distance, when I'm wiping off blood from their loved one's face so they can see the body. Being on stage and having everyone cheer for me. Sitting in a little room with my best friend at her house in a small village in England, and now, missing her so much.
It's been 948 days since I've seen her.
She's 3,200 miles away.
At this moment, I am 31.916 years old.
My son is 7 and 4 days.
My daughter, 10.433 years.
See? Your life can be comprised into a string of simple numbers if you let it.
Number of jobs I've had: 18
Number of years I've had this job: 4
Number of people who's life, I, by myself, have saved: 1
Number of lives I couldn't help save: 68
How many kissess Elliott got yesterday: 12
Cost of my ICU stay earlier this year: $28,000
How many times I've been so in love it hurt: 1
How many people I'd give anything to see: 4
How much sleep I got last night: 7 hours 12 minutes
Cost of my upcoming surgery: about $15,000
How much it will impact my life: remains to be seen.
There are so many things I should do and just haven't done. Maybe one day everything will line up and I will once again, fall madly in love, will fly over the ocean to the place I love, will find a happiness within myself that was always there. For right now, though, I'm going back to sleep.
