Something about going for a run, always inspires me, always leaves me with a zillion ideas for things to do when I get done. I think of these marvelous things and usually I get about as far as showering, eating, and then I fall out of my blissful runner’s “high” or sorts and go back to my usual routine, leaving the dreams on a post-it note for the most part.
Well I just got done with a nice autumn run through the misty dusk of Athens’ hilly back-country, up and over the treacherous country road that crests after a series of steep and slightly inclined segments and opens up to a glimpse of the beautiful country; when it’s clear out, I can usually see a beautiful moon sliver starting to show and the sun squinching out its last rays of day light as it sinks into the western tree-line. And it was while on this run, when I got inspired enough to finally make an update on my site here.
So lately, medical school has been putting me in a bit of a depressive funk, and though I’ve talked about it to my beloved Mr. Darcy (darling husband) and though I feel the love and support from my beautiful family and from my distant best friends and even the wonderful bible study her at OU-HCOM, I’ve just been getting really down. I know it’s the nature of medical school to make a person stressed out, to feel like the demands are greater than the resources; it’s something I’ve been told numerous times, that to have moments of self doubt and discouragement is all-to-normal for especially a first year student. However, the strenuous environment is, honestly, not what gnaws at my emotions and broken-heartedness at the end of a long day.
I’m not sure what it is exactly, but somewhere in the thicket of happenings here at OU, during anatomy immersion and over the last month and a half in the PCC curriculum, I have developed this alienated feeling from my small group of PCC classmates, and I can’t help but feel an oh so bitter sting from this separated feeling I have harbored! These are the people I see every day and wish so badly to feel part of! It’s the absoluteness of having no one to talk to or commiserate with here in this group of people I am always in contact with during class and in between. Maybe it’s my tendency to want to study alone, or my frequent vacancies of this campus and town as I take off to see my hubby in Dayton or my habit of saving all of my few precious frolicking hours of this minute amount of freedom time which I perceive myself to posses for marinating in our marvelous togetherness!!!!!! Now of course I exaggerate, I can’t help it – I have an overactive imagination! I must concede, there are few moments here and there that make me feel like I do have a community of support to be found in my classmates; I’ve had those moments where I feel not so alone in my struggles with studies-like when someone turns to talk to me about our learning issues, tells me the specifics of their struggles, and ask how I am doing with it, or when someone asks me for help on finding a skeletal muscle fiber nucleus on a histology slide or offers help in finding an intercalated disk. And it’s not like I experience this icy silence from classmates as I sit, invisible, in their presence. I am greatly blessed with some fun, outgoing, creative, and noble characters in my curriculum. I just hate not having awesomely close, tight-knit friendships here! Exacerbating this, I keep involuntarily going back and comparing this experience with memories of undergad; I can’t help but miss the way it was back then when I had such a beautiful family of friends there! I miss them all so much!!!!
ANYWAY….here’s a funny story to supplement this un-lifting post!
The other day, I was chopping vegetables in my kitchen. Just chopping away, focusing on the veggies and the sharp blade I was wielding when from under the oven, out ran a furry little mouse!
I did jump a little, I can’t deny, but I’m one of those gals, who is, admittedly, a jumpy one (just ask any of the kids that were in my hallway when I was the honorable RA of Unit 33 at KU…), however, I have no discomfort in the thought of seeing, petting, or holding critters or beasts thought to be vile by the majority of human kind. So I wasn’t at all concerned with the little guy being in the same room as I, besides having the worry of infestation.
My first instinct, was to call the apartment staff. I don’t know why, I just seem to live under this impression that they exist solely to fix all of my problems. Anyways, I happened to be disappointed when the girl on the other end of the phone picked up and informed me that the only thing she could do was file a report and someone would probably come in the next day to install traps.
I never could stand the thought of trapping/killing off pour little critters especially golf-ball sized furry little cute ones! I also was pretty confident there was only one mouse in the house – one Stuart Little among the Emily-Beth abode. My confidence was founded in knowing that I found the door left cracked for a bit just the day before, thus, making a single, short, and recent susceptibility of the apartment to invasion, minimizing the likelihood of a total infestation.
I proceeded to spend the rest of the evening scheming and plotting various methods of capture so that I could save this little guy’s life and release him to the wild! Alas, upon contemplation, my efforts were rather weak, and to say the least, in vane. I started by sitting in front of the fridge to watch for him to come out, a plastic cup close at hand so that I might stoup and scoop him up. He made a successful dash from under the fridge to the dishwasher. So I turned it on to scare him out and tried to block off the fridge so he could not return to give me more time to grab him. He ran back across to the fridge when the dishwasher hit the heated dry cycle, far too fast for me. Emily and I tried to barricade him in, and the next morning I very nearly got him on his way out as he scurried over to our furnace closet! The very closest I ever came to catching him, though, was when Bailey and I were baking pumpkin cookies. I went under the stove to grab a baking sheet in the drawer and there he was! It took us both a second for it to sink in – and I’ll never forget that look on his scared little mousy face as he stared up at me with a wide-eyed mousy continence of total shock and disbelief. I quickly turned to grab a cup and when I turned back, he was gone – back into that darn furnace closet! Bailey and I exploded with laughter as we recounted the incident’s hilarious play-out. Alas – I was so close!
My roommate and James both disagree with my methods of handling the critter. Against my protests, they have elected to set up those blasted mouse traps. I hate them – especially the sticky ones. But my efforts weren’t working… or showing much promise… Anyway, our Lil Stuart did step into one of those nasty little sticky traps and the next morning we found evidence of this by little tufts of fur and remnants of tin foil (which had previously been set up as an “alarm” of sorts so that I would know when he left his hiding spot to attempt mouse-capture) which were stuck to the displaced trap – about a yard from its original location. There were shreds of tin foil surrounding the premise. That morning, I had asked James to investigate the kitchen to make sure the coast was clear for me. I had just awoken from a nasty mouse – killing nightmare and really didn’t want to go in there without knowledge of what massacre I would find! When he showed me mess he found in the kitchen, I just shook my head and said, “He’s a fighter!”
Maybe it’s the fact that the two of us have something in common – we are both in a place which makes us alone, facing the coldness of an discompassionate world! People just don’t understand us! Ha I don’t know what it is, I just feel a certain protectiveness about ’em. I have an irrepressible hope he’ll live to die another day!
I finally motivated myself to cook today, another thing I actually executed from this Wednesday-night’s post-run-inspirations. Yellow squash and zucchini saute’ed in balsamic vinaigrette with mushrooms and a handful of my defrosted corn, taters, green bean, and carrot blend, whipped up with some good old tomato marinara – on the light side since I had snacked too much in group today (Dr. Brose is sooooo awesome! However, if he was my group instructor non-stop for the next two years here, I may just gain 20 pounds eating the candy and salty snacks he sets in a bowl and places directly in the middle of our table. Three words: NO SELF CONTROL!!!!)
Cooking **sigh** something I too often forget that I love to do!
While coming out over that crest to where the trees part and the beautiful auburn and golden leafy country can be seen for miles below, I felt myself remember, as I often do at this point during that loop, how incredibly blessed I am to be here and to have everything that I do. It comes back to me, as clear as if it was yesterday, how desperately I pleaded to God to let me into medical school, to just get me through undergrad with the promise of becoming a doctor one day. I remember, too, how JUST a year ago, I was praying for a special someone to become my one true and everlasting love!!! And how I begged God to grant me the Air Force scholarship. I just marvel at the richness of His provision! All of these thing were given to me, despite my doubts and fears!
I can never be grateful enough to Him, but in rare passages of time such as these, I see a narrow sliver of the picture that is the greatness of God, and I just want to bubble over with joy!
So now that it’s past 11 o’clock, ’tis time to move on to another activity which hopefully doesn’t put too much time between now and sleep. If you read this entire post – you must be either really crazy or you really love me [or both?… 😛 ] so THANKS and I LOVE YOU TOO!!!!! 🙂
Pansy Pantaloons 