and past the horizon till I can't even see you

I've, once again, updated my decision of career path. I now want to be a pediatric oncologist with an emphasis in clinical research.



I'm currently obsessed with children, babies in particular. I've spent my last two Fairview visits with one little girl with whom I am now fully invested in. I want this baby. She has a feeding tube that is obviously uncomfortable, she is always reaching for it and sneezing and coughing. She used to cry about it a lot, but I feel like she is starting to know me. When her coughing wakes her up, I sing to her and she grabs my thumb and stares at me with her huge eyes and loves me and I love her. It's just the way it is. I've come to realize that I am not the mother-type, so I am going to become a pediatrician to satisfy my yearning. I know I won't get to sit around holding babies for hours on end as a physician, but still..





As for the oncology/hematology fellowship, I adopted this plan from our most recent pre-med club meeting's physician. He was a general medicine oncologist, but his philosophy matched my own, and I can't believe I am only now realizing it. His favorite part about oncology was being able to help sick people. This sounds pretty standard for physicians, but really, it isn't. Many are involved in preventative, cosmetic, yata yata yata. Some specialties deal specifically with people in need. Another specialty that satisfies this is surgery. My issue with surgery is that surgeons don't have their "own" patients. They really see any physician's patients who needs surgery. I think that would bother me. I want a patient that I can track and care for. I want to help them and stay with them and know them. (when I speak like this, I almost think nursing is a better path for me...)



Another reason I like oncology, and the particular reason that I feel like I should have figured out a long time ago, I am, rather concerningly, interested in death. I mean, really. The music I listen to, the movies I watch, the books I read--they all revolve around dying it seems. I honestly am interested in the psychology of dying, but I really don't want to be a psychiatrist. Too much politics. Still, oncology incorporates a certain degree of social work of course, and I just think I am for some reason particularly atuned to this emotion. Like I'm extra sensitve to the concept, for whatever reason. I sat and listened to the physican speak about his work, and I just wanted to cry--but in a good way. Maybe not in a good way.. In a, "this is really sad, I really like to be sad" sort of way.







I sort of brushed off the fact that I'm not the mother-type. Truth: it terrifies me. I just could not raise a child. It was way too much responsibility. I mean, obviously I'm okay with responsibility to the effect that I want to save their lives, but the parent's raising methods has so much more of an effect psychologically. I don't feel like my parents had that much of an effect on my psychology, but that in itself is an effect, right? Another thing, I'm pretty sure I have some sanity issues.. (I'm not). So I don't want really want to pass on those genes. Which, when I say it outloud, sounds like a terrible insult to my family. But I guess that is exactly how I mean it. I kind of think we all ahve some psychological problems. People probably don't really know that about us, we all seem so normal. We so aren't normal. And I will even go so far as to say it is a bad thing. I mean, it can't be, we are all our own person, and I love all of our personalities. But I think each of us could stand to be a bit happier. And I can't help but blame genetics, because we all are a little bit, and I don't think it has to do with our childhood. Because our childhood was pretty fantastic. But we all grew up to be a little too unhappy, for no reason at all.

Just some thoughts. Well, a lot of thoughts.

Oh yea, one more: this is my current favorite song. It's what also scares me about being a parent.


Boats & Birds
by Gregory and the Hawk

If you'll be my star
I'll be your sky
You can hide underneath me and come out at night
When I turn jet black and you show off your light
I live to let you shine
I live to let you shine

And you can sky-rocket away from me
And never come back if you find another galaxy
Far from here with more room to fly
Just leave me your stardust to remember you by

it's like a sudden rush of water through your heart and bones

I wish I could be five years old. I wish



And it's funny how his voice changed into what it used to be. Wise and patient, autocratic. Like I was his five year old girl again and I was learning the facts of life. I wish it were that simple. I wish you could tell me everyone was overreacting, and we would all be okay. The bright sun comes up every morning to make the corn grow. Doctors say what they say to scare you into spending money. Don't go into the woods alone or you won't find your way back home.


I wish I could be five years old because there was no such thing as science. There was Dad and he was the absolute truth. No relativism. And kidneys failing after multiple bypass surgeries was a fairy tale physicians tell their patients. And red blood cell count doesn't start to rise when your only kidney starts to fail. And the accumulation of RBC won't block flow to your heart. And you won't have a heart attack. All that is pretend.

Some things I wish I didn't know. I wish I didn't know that life is never that simple. I wish I didn't know that sometimes the reaction is absolutely, and regrettably suitable. I wish I didn't know that not always will we all be okay. I wish I didn't know that not every morning the sun comes up. I wish I didn't understand that physicians spend half of their lives in school and sacrifice everything to be in medicine. And they are smart enough to know that if they were in it for the money, there are a hell of a lot of career paths less demanding and sacrificing. Physicians need an alterior motive: But the love I mean is the fire that burns inside us all, the inner warmth that prevents our soul from freezing in the winters of despair. It's the love of life itself. I wish I didn't know that.

I wish we all didn't have to wander the woods alone. But where is home?











Well, it's 4:30am.. I suppose, since I apparently don't know how to sleep anymore, I should get up and be productive.

not even grey, but she buries her baby

Today I waited at a stoplight to cross the street as a mother and her two young boys waited also, on the other side. The light turned green. I had that wonderful, warm feeling in my heart you get when you watch little kids playing. Being happy. Enjoying life.



Songs of Innocence.

And so, as if on cue, Experience infected the scene.

Halfway across the street, the children had passed, my mind had already moved on. The warmth in my heart lingered though. It's funny how that can happen. One child, one ridiculous laugh, one crooked grin with missing teeth. It can change your outlook. Even if you don't notice it does. It's the collection of these moments that change you. Change everyone. Change our minds, our hearts. It's love, I think.


I probably wouldn't have noticed that the mother was still in front of me. I wouldn't have noticed that I was studying her face, reading her, judging her, envying her, trusting her. But I did notice. Because you notice panic. Horror. Dread. Hysteria.

And it was electricity through my body. I think I stood still, but I can't be sure. I think my eyes were wide with horror to match the mother's. Or maybe they had snapped shut. And I think my twisted stomach doubled me over and I spilled its contents there in the street. Or maybe I stood still, I can't be sure.

Then she shrieked. And I must have turned, because I saw the blue car flatten her child. I saw his tiny body, which had just seconds ago bopped around happily, laying lifeless in the street. I saw pools of dark red grow from beneath him. I saw his mother collapse at at his side and scream to her god. For a new chance. A time reversal. Her baby back.

And tires screeched.


And my mind snapped back to life. The distorted face in front of me softened with relief. I eagerly whipped around to find the car crooked on the street. The boy unscathed.

Blissful, innocent of his near fate. That was awhile ago. A couple of days. I haven't stopped shaking.

Home is wherever I'm with you

I don't have the drugs to sort it out

I've a fantastic case of insomnia tonight. My fucking head is pounding.

My heart doesn't seem to be.

I am. I am. I am.

I am I am Iam.

running in circles, chasing our tails, coming back as we are

I lay wide awake in bed this morning thinking. It was one of those moments where I realized I have ruined my life in a way, and there is no way to fix it. My ruined life is terminal.

They say it's a piece of you that is yours only, until you make the decision to give it away. But once it's gone, where does it go? I don't believe in it belonging to the person you gave it to. Because most often, in today's day and age, that person doesn't mean anything to anybody. They just happen to be the one person that is present at the moment you give it away. But they don't keep it, no. But who does?

My epiphany began last week with my beautifully insightful patient at Fairview. She made me realize I ruined my life. Yea, it is awful news. And it would be easier to not have known. Ignorance is bliss. But I'm thankful she showed me. Because maybe, just maybe. Now that I know that my life would be less ruined if I found it again, I can begin to look for it.

Is there no way out of the mind?

I've got to put her down. She's messing me up.. well more, that is. I'm not sure what it is either. Lately I've had my head stuck in The Bell Jar throughout my days--like even when I'm not reading it, I think about it. But not about the story, or about the characters, or anything like that. I think like Esther. (Don't worry, not in the commit suicide sense).. I think like her in the way that I itemize everything I see. I wish I was stealthy enough, or perhaps just secure enough to carry a journal around with me and write everything I see and think about. I'm fairly certain it would amount to nothing, and likely, a crazy nothing. But it would be interesting. It would be more interesting than the sleepy stuff I come up with at night.

I anyways finished The Bell Jar, and I've moved onto The Journals of Sylvia Plath. And it's already stunning. The Bell Jar ended quite beautifully--not happy, not sad, but realistic. Life. I'm not so demented that I wish for sad endings, but I tend to get agitated at too happy of endings. That isn't life, to put it bluntly. But neither is life completely hopeless. I think it's just normal. It is what it is. It usually works out, but when it doesn't, we survive. Life, is surviving.

My mom recently went into a lovely (**yawn) discourse on the negative impact of the media on kids. Her specific example was Skins (that British show that I used to be positively in love with that is now a terrible American remake). She thinks the partying and drugs and sex and whatnot is bad for kids to see because they will take it to heart and believe it to be an accurate representation of their peers. Since I didn't have the heart to tell her it was 1,000% true, I took another approach: I scolded her for her complete disregard of other forms of media that are potentially corrupting children. I'm positive no television show shook me to my core, all the way to my own hidden crazy, the way Miss Plath has done these past few days. Is a visual really needed to understand just how insane she was? If the answer is yes (I think no, but to entertain the opinion..), then what about art?

This is one of my favorite by Jack Kevorkian. I feel as though I don't really have to say much about it.

So, of course, we aren't going to take away literature and art from growing minds, so how could we possibly take away (or restrict) television or movies? It's the same, or probably, a little tamer.

I'll exit with a bit of Sylvia:

With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone, it is dead. But you can't start over with each new second, you have to judge by what is dead. It's like quicksand...hopeless from the start. A story, a picture, can renew sensation a little, but not enough, not enough. Nothing is real except the present, and already I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don't want to die.