Something funny happened since last time. I just stopped wanting to write about my job. I have still had great days and awful ones, moments of inspiration and others filled with doubt and the lurking jaded, feeling insecure and out of place and occasionally, like I totally fit in. But I didn't feel like telling you about it and I didn't feel like it was worth telling.
Today I realized that I'm just over the anecdotal form. I want more from my life, I want more from my reflections and when I see that 'more', then I'll really have something to write to you about. Part of me still drifts off into the fantasies of those unwritten stories -real good fiction that tells itself in my head, at random points in the day.
Pacing, driving, not sleeping, restlessly eating, walking about the hospital and the city and through the maze of my overwhelmed thoughts, it was gently and beautifully pointed out to me this evening that this is all part of the process. I'm not the first one to feel all this, and to feel alone in it. For moments at a time, I still feel alone. Despite making lots of friends at work and somehow, spectacularly, outside of the health professionals circuit too; despite enjoying my work and the people with whom I spend the greater part of my life these days; despite indulging in the breathtaking scenic and culinary delights of this coastal city; despite the rejuvenation and pleasure of rigorous, near-competitive Masters swim classes... despite all this, I find that I am sometimes overcome by a sharp sense of alone-ness.
Initially, I mistook this for loneliness. But they are not one and the same. I stole myself in the secret shame of longing for old loves, that familiar intimacy and companionship, as I stressed about belonging in a new place, all the work there is to do, the magnitude of the demands on me spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and physically. Nuits blanches, fretting and frittering. It's not an honest agony though. The real source of all that is in the anticipation and the stress of personal transformation. Living alone, having a real, serious, grown-up job, getting settled, and preparing for the quest within that this residency will be. I am alone in this. Even if I found my 'great love', even if I lived with my family, even if I was surrounded by old friends who really knew me. That "me" is changing. It has to. And it will do it alone. With hard work, prayer, and of course plenty of support and love from all those wonderful people with whom I share my past, as well as with all the new and interesting people with whom I share this present and future, I will be an evolved me at the end of these five years. Not really an island at all, but fundamentally experiencing exactly what I only can experience and know, completely alone.
How does one accept aloneness so well that it's nearly impossible to be lonely? I'm a natural introvert -even though I can be gregarious and social and enjoy good company -I draw my energy from within and cherish the sanctity of my solitude! Yet I feel restless and uncomfortable with the realization that at a certain point in life, you're alone in exactly how you think, what you want to do, and how you feel you need to do it... like you've "specialized" in the general ideas you used to have, that perhaps more people could understand or relate to or share. Some things can no longer be fully shared. Maybe not even with that great love of your life with whom you might share plenty else. I've never really been confronted so fully with that reality as now. And I'm still working on it.
This evening, I walked down the slanted streets of this town in the blues and silvers of dusk on the shimmering harbour waters. I smelled that smoky-pine in the air that kissed summer heat and the golden early fall farewell, with a brisk chill breeze through my hair. Winter winds, gales, blizzards, snow and ice are on their way -I feel them coming, within. I only hope the dazzling sun will reflect those sparkling bright fuscias, greens, yellows, violets... the whole spectrum of joy in the diamonds they leave in their wake.
Today I realized that I'm just over the anecdotal form. I want more from my life, I want more from my reflections and when I see that 'more', then I'll really have something to write to you about. Part of me still drifts off into the fantasies of those unwritten stories -real good fiction that tells itself in my head, at random points in the day.
Pacing, driving, not sleeping, restlessly eating, walking about the hospital and the city and through the maze of my overwhelmed thoughts, it was gently and beautifully pointed out to me this evening that this is all part of the process. I'm not the first one to feel all this, and to feel alone in it. For moments at a time, I still feel alone. Despite making lots of friends at work and somehow, spectacularly, outside of the health professionals circuit too; despite enjoying my work and the people with whom I spend the greater part of my life these days; despite indulging in the breathtaking scenic and culinary delights of this coastal city; despite the rejuvenation and pleasure of rigorous, near-competitive Masters swim classes... despite all this, I find that I am sometimes overcome by a sharp sense of alone-ness.
Initially, I mistook this for loneliness. But they are not one and the same. I stole myself in the secret shame of longing for old loves, that familiar intimacy and companionship, as I stressed about belonging in a new place, all the work there is to do, the magnitude of the demands on me spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and physically. Nuits blanches, fretting and frittering. It's not an honest agony though. The real source of all that is in the anticipation and the stress of personal transformation. Living alone, having a real, serious, grown-up job, getting settled, and preparing for the quest within that this residency will be. I am alone in this. Even if I found my 'great love', even if I lived with my family, even if I was surrounded by old friends who really knew me. That "me" is changing. It has to. And it will do it alone. With hard work, prayer, and of course plenty of support and love from all those wonderful people with whom I share my past, as well as with all the new and interesting people with whom I share this present and future, I will be an evolved me at the end of these five years. Not really an island at all, but fundamentally experiencing exactly what I only can experience and know, completely alone.
How does one accept aloneness so well that it's nearly impossible to be lonely? I'm a natural introvert -even though I can be gregarious and social and enjoy good company -I draw my energy from within and cherish the sanctity of my solitude! Yet I feel restless and uncomfortable with the realization that at a certain point in life, you're alone in exactly how you think, what you want to do, and how you feel you need to do it... like you've "specialized" in the general ideas you used to have, that perhaps more people could understand or relate to or share. Some things can no longer be fully shared. Maybe not even with that great love of your life with whom you might share plenty else. I've never really been confronted so fully with that reality as now. And I'm still working on it.
This evening, I walked down the slanted streets of this town in the blues and silvers of dusk on the shimmering harbour waters. I smelled that smoky-pine in the air that kissed summer heat and the golden early fall farewell, with a brisk chill breeze through my hair. Winter winds, gales, blizzards, snow and ice are on their way -I feel them coming, within. I only hope the dazzling sun will reflect those sparkling bright fuscias, greens, yellows, violets... the whole spectrum of joy in the diamonds they leave in their wake.
