Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead...

Tumultuous as the past few weeks may have been, it is far better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all...especially when those who were lost find their way back...

It's been so long since I've heard that 4 lettered word uttered from someone whom I felt the same for. Love is such a funny thing - we fight so hard to hide it though we carelessly leave behind us a trail littered with signs of its presence. For a long time it's only been family and a select few girl friends who I've shared that word with. But long before and then again now, there's been him. My heart aches that we have to now say our goodbyes. Forget about The First Love, this is The True Love.

I found pictures of us from years ago, back when our romance was first flourishing in the heat of trips to Miami and Trinidad. Now we have become more brazen and my camera captures sweet moments abroad and in the tropics. But no matter where the location of our adventures, the passion still burns the same, if not brighter. To douse the flames, I'm trying to drown myself in the guiltless love of family and friends.

And I'd like to think my move to NYC is going to quell the burn though thanks to his infinite kindness and big heart, where I'll be staying the first 2 weeks is going to be a constant reminder of him. Thankfully so though - as always he remains in my heart as the most stable and dependable man I've ever known.

Do you think that we can really love twice? I'm hoping so because he's said he doesn't think it wise for us to keep on dreaming. I suppose to be together we'd have to change where we are and run the risk of awakening next to someone who is no longer the same person we'd fallen in love with. Regardless, waking up alone I fear is going to be so hard to do...

The Man and the Rock

There once was a man who devoted his whole life to pleasing God. Every morning he would wake up and pray and ask God what it was that He desired he do for Him. One night, God spoke to the man in his sleep and said, "Go outside and push that rock." The next morning, the man walked out of his house and saw there was enormous boulder in his front yard. For days the man pushed as hard as he could, toiling all day and all night until sweat poured down his face and drenched the clothes on his back. The days turned into nights, weeks, months, years - Finally, one morning the man heard another voice in his head. This voice started to question "Why should I keep pushing the rock? I've been slaving for so long and the boulder has never budged even an inch. I've spent all my time pushing against this rock and nothing has happened, I must not be doing something right and have displeased God." And so, the man stopped pushing.

That night, God came to him again his dream. He asked the man, "Why did you stop doing what I asked you to do?" The man responded "God, I spent every waking moment doing what you told me to do but I can not get that boulder to move. Please tell me, what am I doing wrong?" To which God replied "I asked you to push the rock, not to move it. This whole time you thought you were so intently waiting for the rock to change that you neglected to notice any other changes that may have taken place. Look at your arms, they are so strong and sinewy. See how muscular your legs and your back have become. You dedicated everything you had to the task at hand and your mind has become strong and willful like never before. While you were waiting for something to change on the outside, you missed all the change that has happened within."

Reminding myself that sometimes resistance can be a blessing in disguise...

Stuck Between a Rock and Hard Place

One of my favorite yoga teachers once asked:

"Are you reflecting or projecting today?"

We have a tendency to dwell for so long on our problems that a thought as simple as 'Hm. It's been a year and I still havent found anyone I feel like expending the energy to seriously date' quickly morphs into 'Oh my god my ex is already bringing his new girlfriend 3000 miles home to meet his family he's going to get married before me I'm going to die a spinster and alone.' Finally able to recognize the warning signs of the tortuous downward spiral that usually ensues following these types of projections, I wanted to start off today on a more positive note and contemplate the question posed by my much wiser yogi.

Are you capable of viewing your problems for what they really are?
Or do you also want to magnify and project onto others any and all your grievances? It must be the curse of humanity to be so vain as to want to view ourselves in a much larger than context than we really are.

This picture brought me some solace this morning. From the trip to Peru I took with aforementioned ex years back, it's a picture of the rock piles the hikers past had left as they climbed Machu Picchu. As the travelers journey past, each one is supposed to place another rock on top of the last one left behind. If the pile collapses the next hiker starts it all over again. It becomes a marker that represents a single spot that is changed, augmented, sometimes even destroyed by random people who are otherwise unconnected. It makes me think of how far and yet nowhere it seems like I've gone over the past year. Touched by many random people, built up and broken down by the same, and now just waiting for the next traveler to venture past...

Think about and thank the people who have added to and detracted from your rock pile. I figure even if we've fallen down, the next person to come by will shape us in a totally different way.
We hope maybe for the better.

Contagious Creativity

Just because we may find ourselves continuously chasing the same goals doesn't mean that the path by which we choose to pursue those ideals need stay the same. Don't be afraid of the unexpected bridges you may have to cross. Delight in the moments you're inspired to stop and admire the flowers you're running past. Slow Down.

We're all in such a rush to get no where.

It took an impromptu visit from my younger, more cerebral brother last night to remind me once again of the privileges we enjoy: Though we posses a sound body, mind and soul, why is it sometimes so easy to forget all we're blessed with and become caught up in our insecurities? One of my favorite parts of medicine is that by constantly being surrounded by the elements of human suffering, it teaches us to look past the magnifications of our own worries and address concerns of life and death - which is really the only worry of any lasting consequence.

Take a step back. Breathe. Analyze.

Allow your own fears to be dwarfed so you can make room to be compassionate about those of others.

Kicking around the sand in the sunset, as we walked along the beach my brother posed an interesting query: Is the human race akin to a parasite? We thrive off leeching resources and in the process cause the demise of those we are dependent on. Taken on a personal scale, we as children drain our parents with our monetary requirements and the emotional strain of child-rearing. As adults, we exploit the weaknesses of our cohorts for personal advancement. As a society, we suck the earth dry of natural resources so we can further pollute the environment. As a political entity, we are warring with countries for what? To establish our military superiority? To gain control of materialistic resources? The irony lay in the fact of how circuitous all the aforementioned pursuits are. We assert dominance to further personal gains but at the end of the day are we really any better off holistically? And isn't that what living with a good quality of life is all about...

Gratitude

Saturday Morning: I woke up at 6am today to go pre-round at the hospital and get patients ready for discharge in an attempt to impress my Attending. The first comment he makes on my hours of work? "You wrote the prescription for Percocet incorrectly."

It's now 11:30am and I'm still in the hospital. On the 10th floor in my secret study room. Starting once again to feel frustration creeping back in, I take a break to glance outside the window and see this:






I laugh, thinking how many little signs from the Universe I must have missed for the wise ones above to finally hit me over the head with a message I can't ignore.

Currently feeling grateful for ubiquitous love, as amorphous and undirected as it may be. Look around you:

What signs from the Universe are you not seeing? What are you happy for today?

Sea Dreamer

"When you sail to find me
Let the wind remind thee
Of a shipwrecked sailor that was saved by a maiden
And sent out to sea
That's where I'll be
A million, million miles away
Sea dreamer 'til my dying day..."

Advice

Best piece of advice - As narrated by my attending this morning:

It is far better to be alone and happy than with someone and miserable

Take time to enjoy the pleasures of being selfish when you can.
And when you start to feel the urge to be domesticated:
1). Bake some vegan muffins - for the office
2). Cuddle a baby - your Attending's
3). Go out to a fancy dinner - with Drug Reps
4). Chat on the phone with someone inspirational - your mother, girlfriends, pretty boys you call friends.
5). Look at it not as nights alone, but rather as evenings you can spend enjoying the sunset in peaceful silence.

These moments like all the rest are fleeting. Embrace them when you can but also, don't be afraid of letting go...

Mothers

"I still hear you humming, Mama. The color of your song calls me home. The color of your words saying, "Let her be. She got a right to be different. She gonna stumble on herself one of these days. Just let the child be." And I be, Mama." - Sonia Sanchez

God could not be everywhere and therefore He made mothers

No one will ever love you as much or know you as well as your mom. Love her, cherish her and above all else, listen to HER. I love you mommy for always knowing best how to get me out of a dark place and back into the light.

Rebirth

The irony hit today so I knew the attempt at verbal rationalization was in close pursuit..

The time occupying the days between October and now was comprised of 2 cups of self-deprecation, 3 tbsp of selfishness, a pinch of sadism baked in a complete lack of control, at high heat for about 150 days. Topped with a light dusting of hopelessness, just to really seal in the flavor. But like all things left out and unattended, this worthless concoction also started to lose its edible integrity and I think it's now finally time to take out the trash.

How is it that even after we've learned our lessons and vowed never to start studying the night before a test/date that man and men like him/pretend chocolate holds complete nutritious value/stop doing yoga it's so easy to overnight forget the ideals we know we should live our lives by and relapse back into old, bad habits? It's not like it's by any means any easier or more enjoyable to live life making bad choices...In fact, as I've discovered, it's far more emotionally and physically exhausting! So I'm trying to understand where the appeal is in knowingly doing things you know are detrimental to your well being. Or am I the only crazy person here? These days I can't say I feel the least bit normal or connected to anyone anymore. I've always lived in a bubble but now it seems like these days the soapy membrane doesn't extend beyond myself and my eccentricities.

This last month in particular seemed to be wrought with bad choices, from once again meeting all the men from my past I had promised to swear off once and for all, knowing they will never bring any kind of stability or happiness to my life. To giving up what I had thought was my dream career out of fear that I won't be able to get there in a straightforward fashion. To stopping the longest committed relationship I've ever had in my life - with my Yoga mat.

While these thoughts and others spin around wildly and incessantly in my head, I find some solace in hoping that maybe by revisiting all the things I know are bad for me, I'll hopefully recognize and hold onto those things that bring happiness when they come and this time be smart enough to not let go, starting with Ob/Gyn...I find more comfort and use for myself in this field because I know what it's like to be scared and uneducated. In that moment, what you need is someone who understands how to give you what you need, information and emotion. Plus there is no greater feeling than being the first person to let a brand new mother hear her baby's heartbeat for the first time. Or to be the one to hand a set of brand-new parents their first child. It's funny that the reasons I thought I was going to hate this field (no men patients?? except the newborn males who need circumcisions..) are now seeming like the perfect reasons for me to be an ob/gyn (Lord knows the last thing I need in my life are any more men and the complications they present).

Tossing and turning in turbulent feelings of confusion, as I try to cope with the daily ebb and flow of my stance on my loneliness I find some comfort in Botticelli's Birth of Venus: A full-grown woman arriving on the sea-shore, great debates rage on as to whether Venus was an earthly goddess arousing physical love in humans or a heavenly goddess inspiring intellectual love. Right now I'm fiercely trying to believe in the ability to be both.