When I see someone 24, I think "wow, you have so much potential. So much time."

I'm 27.

I feel older, while simultaneously making an effort to convince myself that I'm not 18 anymore.

To Do

I don’t know how many times I’ve resolved in the middle of the night to start everything all over, all right, in the morning. Every now and again it actually sticks and I get up, go for a run, eat a healthy breakfast, read my Bible, brush AND floss, wash AND moisturize, stylize my hair, add makeup and wear a coordinated outfit, pack a decent lunch, make menu plans for dinner, stay ahead on all of my school work, have a clean house, clean car and balanced checkbook.

Ok, maybe I lied. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a day when all of that actually happened. I’ve had days when most of that happened, or the really important parts of it. Or the parts that aren’t important, but easy. Or half of the important things happened with half of the fluff.

Am I alone in that? Because I’m pretty sure I’m not, but it sure feels like it sometimes. Looking at the first paragraph of this makes me tired. When I take into consideration that many of my days are flipped from a “normal” schedule and involve waking up at 4 in the afternoon in order to accomplish all of that before leaving for work at 6, I just get confused.

Calvin's Mom's Casserole

A couple weeks ago I realized that I don't pray very much.

That realization in itself didn't really bother me. Prayer wasn't a big deal, you know, it was just a conversation that I'd have on an almost constant basis. So constant it was like breathing and I didn't know I was doing it.

What bothered me was that the realization was accompanied by a feeling of discomfort. Awkwardness that I didn't know how to handle overcame me, accompanied by this vague sensation of incredulity at the very existence of a God to Whom I used to feel so close. That was followed by guilt. Guilt for my doubt, guilt for my sin, guilt for my distance. So much guilt. So, of course, I just sort of ignored it.

Now I'm having borderline anxiety attacks. Because I'm older, because I'm afraid of hurting my patients, because life is so freaking huge and I am so pitifully small. Because I'm fat when I want to be thin and I seem to be determinedly complacent in changing that. Because.....because of so much that I am incapable of expressing - especially since I don't really write anymore.

Writing used to be a way of expressing myself when all else failed. Now it seems more like vomiting. Painful, burning, explosive and disgusting. Sometimes I feel better when it's all out there, but there's always this vague sense of residual mental nausea. Appealing, huh?

Add to the pile of randomness the fact that I always get homesick in the fall, and, well, I am basically a mess right now. A mess who is applying to jobs less than two months into what she thought was her dream job. A mess who is suspicious of the God she knows has the answers somewhere. And a mess who feels too tired to really try to de-mess any of this.

I swear I don't want to depress anyone, and I'm not *really* depressed beyond all hope. That's another reason I don't write much, actually. The thought of anyone getting dragged down by my crap bothers me more than the crap itself.

What Do You Do

When the only person you want to talk to about your crappy noncrappy day is dead?

When you feel like you should be over this by now, since it's been five years and you know talking to that person wouldn't really fix anything?

When you're beginning to think that the entirety of your past three years of sleepless nights, low balance bank account and sheer stubborn willpower was a mistake?

Personally, I cry my eyes out on the way to Wal-Mart after work so I can buy an alarm clock.

Doesn't really fix anything, but at least I can hope that tomorrow's noncrappy crappiness won't be a mirror image repeat of today's.

Now What

I am a cynic and a skeptic.

It was never my intention to become either of these things, but that’s how it’s turned out. And I don’t really know exactly how – or if I did know how, if I would change it.

What I would like to change, however, is the automatic revulsion I feel whenever I enter an organizedly “Christian” setting.

Revulsion may not be the right word. Plastic doesn’t quite fit my purposes either. It’s really hard to describe without coming back to the fact that I’m a cynical skeptic. (after looking up the definitions to both of these words, I’ve concluded that I’m more of a skeptic than a cynic. But I do have some cynical tendencies)

Part of the problem may be rooted in the fact that I was raised in a fairly typical Christian conservative tradition. Having now grown into my mid-twenties, I see the traditions and viewpoints of that upbringing to be “childish.” I’ve grown past that point, I tell myself, there must be something more - a deeper understanding, an actual purpose beyond that which I’ve been drilled on since I can remember.

Besides that, life is exhausting enough as it is without trying to figure out metaphysical truths. Work, friends, school, volunteering….all of it takes up time. Church takes time too. Time that I know I should carve out, because what is it worth to gain the world, but lose your soul, right?

*sigh* Right.

The thing is, I don’t feel like I’m losing my soul. I feel like I’m finally in a place where I’ve found it. Things are falling into place.

Except for those few little things that are supposed to be more important than anything else. So what am I supposed to do?

Life

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the nature of life. In biology class, we’re all told just what it is that classifies something as having life. There’s a list of characteristics:
-consists of cells
-uses energy
-develops
-reproduces
There are some exceptions, such as sterile hybrids. And controversies like the age old question of whether or not viruses are living; but for the most part, for something to be alive, it needs to meet scientific criteria.

My question is similar, but more metaphysical than physical. It lies in knowing where the difference is between living and truly being alive. I was raised in a conservative tradition that held to the pro-life mantra of “life is sacred!” My family wasn’t militant about it, it was just accepted. Life is worth living; don’t kill people just because they can’t fend for themselves.

During my last clinical rotation as a nursing student I worked with patients who made me question just what it is that makes us alive. They were all breathing – some of them on their own, others with varying levels of assistance – they were all “alive” in the textbook sense of the word. But the majority of them were in what we healthcare people politely and clinically call “a persistent vegetative state” This is the technical term for what happens when a person doesn’t respond to external influences with any sort of intelligent response. It’s less brain activity than an infant, if for no other reason than the fact that infants have hope of progressing to higher brain function and physical development.

As an emergency medicine junkie, it was a very, very difficult rotation for me. I’m accustomed to the mad rush of saving lives. This was the slow routine of maintaining them.

By the end of my eight weeks I was adept at suctioning a tracheostomy while maintaining sterile technique and administering feedings and medications via gastrostomy tubes. I could do the ADL care for my patient and have time to spare for helping my classmates, but I still didn’t have a sense of peace about the philosophy behind the physiology. Do I believe in euthanasia after all? Does quality of life trump quantity? I can’t embrace that for the implications it brings to the bigger picture. Who makes decisions about what version of life is actually worth living? But neither do I embrace the idea that an eighteen year old man who has spent more than two thirds of his life lying in a bed, never tasting ice cream on a summer day and reveling in sunshine is really and truly alive.

Where do our souls live? Honestly. Are we surrounded by people living out some strange form of purgatory on earth due to the advances of medical technology that hasn’t advanced quite far enough?

---

I left this post without posting it because I didn’t feel that I had a satisfying conclusion. Now I’ve come back to it (granted, at 0200, but I’m nocturnal) and I’m almost convinced that it’s one of those questions for which we mortals will never have an answer. It asks things too deep for us to know. So I’ll keep doing my best to save lives and continue to hope.

The Same Person

A while ago I made a promise to myself that I would be the same person in every situation. What you see is what you get, no more of the "placate everyone else until you don't remember who you are anymore" game. If people are offended shrug it off and know that they weren't your friend in the first place.

There's a history and context to that decision, of course, but the consequence has basically been that I am transparent. Not everyone gets it, and I admittedly struggle with it at times. I don't wantonly blab my opinion at every given opportunity, and I do my best to be wise with what I express to certain people, but I hope that people recognize me as someone who is honest and worthy of trust because of it.

So, with all of that said, why a new blog?

Because I want a fresh place to type up ideas. Whenever I go to post on my older blogs I end up feeling bogged down by the history I find there. I'm going to try to limit this to substantive thoughts - most of which will probably stem from a medical origin. Sorry, it's the nature of the beast.