With Maps, a Mountain Range, A Piggy Bank

I'm sitting here trying to study for a big Patho exam happening next Wednesday. This class is tough, and there are hours upon hours of materials to study. I can count on one hand the number of times I've stayed in on a Friday to study. This is certainly the first since classes started 5 weeks ago. I think I'm supposed to feel accomplished but instead just feel behind.

I got home from a great clinical tonight feeling energized. But there's so much to know for my clinical - so many terms I'm not familiar with, I could spend the weekend just reviewing the skills and concepts that we learned this week. Makes me fuzzy and a bit defeated.

I baked a frozen pizza for dinner and unwound for a bit. The plan was to start studying at 7, but then I needed to go out for a walk and get some fresh air. Like most nights lately, the air is cool, fresh and welcoming. (The night sky tonight looks a lot like the one in the photo above.)

I called my parents - my mom just got back tonight from a 2-week trip to Ireland. She asked me about school - It is tough. Really tough. But I am in love with my cohort and classes are good. Did I mention it is tough? It's kinda amazing the amount of contorting and breaking of your old lifestyle and habits that needs to happen just to keep your head above water with 6 classes, each of which is pretty demanding in its own way. I talked to my Dad. When he was hanging up he actually said I love you, which he hardly ever says. It sorta breaks my heart.

I then walked over to my friend Jason's house, which he just bought and moved into on Wednesday. I walked up to the front porch. The living room light was on but he wasn't home. I sat on the swing and took it all in. A beer would be good right now. I imagined the next few years, and the thought of sitting on this porch often over the next 4 years made me feel good, but it was odd too. What am I going to be like when this experience is over, when my commitment to DC is finished?

I called L to finalize lunch plans for tomorrow, then my friend Emily. As the night went on I started growing lonely, and I wanted to hear a friendly voice. I thought about calling some friends from Chicago and Portland, but I didn't have the energy. My brother too. But I wouldn't know where to start.

In the last two weeks I've had rather tough realizations about some of the relationships in my life, grappling with the idea that when I think of my long-term future, I'm more alone than I wanted to believe; that I've had to re-evaluate some of the relationships I've been taking for granted. And I think of one of my favorite songs, Iron & Wine's "The Trapeze Swinger" and it is particularly heartbreaking on a night like tonight ("...The trapeze act was wonderful but never meant to last...") and it hurts to even type these words so I'm moving on...

As I sat on Jason's porch, I saw people walking by - couples, neighbors, friends - all laughing and smiling, having good times together, sharing lives together - and I can feel that hole inside me grow just a little bit bigger.

There's that part of me that wants to open up to new relationships that seem to be budding here in DC, and the other part of me that thinks it best to keep these people at arms length because I just don't need the distraction right now. And it's this conflict that makes me a little blue.

So here I am. Me and my Patho lectures. And it is almost 10, so I need to get to it.