Mr. G

I can’t remember the last time I cried for a patient. Working in health care/medical field kinda desensitizes you after a while, and I don’t mean being less empathic or caring – that dying on the inside never stops. But as with anything you continuously get exposed to or expose yourself to, you develop a tolerance, some muscle, a defense tactic so natural it’s almost by reflex, all to make you seem tougher than you really are or would care to admit. It’s a defense thing. And in a profession where you have to deal with human despair day in and day out, any kind of wall is a must to keep one’s sanity intact.

I haven’t cried for and with a patient in a while. At least not openly. Not til today. I just don’t understand how someone should suffer that much. In nursing school, they instructed us to relate to our patients as if they’re our loved ones – our parents, siblings, daughters, sons, etc. I thought and still think that that’s the most ridiculous thing ever. Objectivity goes out the window along with rationality and level-headedness and keeping cool once love is involved. No projection of any sort is advisable at least not in my book. This is why I can never work in pediatrics or with animals. I know with absolute certainty how attached I could get so better stay away. 

So I don’t know why this particular man, what with all the patients I’ve encountered in similar dire circumstances, got to me, like really got to me to the point of crying like a little bitch while renderring wound care (who does that?!). Somehow and I don’t know why but I started thinking if he was my dad, I would sell my soul to the devil just so we can trade places. I found myself thinking, nobody, nobody deserves to suffer as much as this man is suffering right now. I found myself apologizing to him cause I couldn’t give him a higher dose of pain medication though he probably didn’t understand a damn thing I said seeing how delirious he was with pain and meds and being kept alive when every bone in his body is screaming “I want out!”… that kind of despair and helplessness, that’s hell right there. 

I’m sorry Mr. G, I’m sure you’re a really good person and a good father seeing as how your children are so devoted to keeping you alive (forgive them for they don’t know what they do). As I’ve said earlier in this post, love blinds and makes idiots of us all.

I like being a nurse but godddamn I hate this part.

LESSONS

Told myself I’d stop writing here but here I am – I have discipline issues.

Writing’s cathartic and I find myself overly zealous about it especially when I’m on emotional turmoil. Did I suddenly become free of all life’s mess that I wasn’t compelled to write at all? I daresay not. But I did fall in love. Was in a real exclusive monogamous relationship for quite some time there with the very person I’ve come to fill these pages about. It was like a fairytale and “shit did become magical.” You’ve all probably heard/read about it from so and so’s sister’s cousin’s friend, like an urban legend of sorts. Girl meets boy in NYC, sparks fly, became FWB then best friends with benefits, blurred lines, unrequited crap, boy relocates, lines get blurrier (more blurry?), girl gets heart smashed, blocks boy outta her life, boy comes back, they go to coachella, romance ignites, boy proposes love, girl accepts, they coupled up and lived happily ever after. BZZZZT. Wrong ending, try again.

Truth is, it was some sort of a twisted modern fairytale as far as twisted modern fairytales go. I was involved in an intense long distance relationship with my best friend over the course of six months. Although the sitch clearly wasn’t ideal, we were that in love with each other – like all other LDR couples are I assume – to surrender to our ideals and naivete and vowed to break all the notions that LDR’s do not work. And I guess, in retrospect, we really kinda did. Yes, distance was ultimately in my opinion the main killer but only because we let it. Rather, I let it. I let it eat me up to the point that I lost who I was and who I wanted to be for him, for our relationship, for myself. I got eaten up, ate it right back, and vomited all over the beauty of it all. I subconsciously succumbed to the negativity and the hardships rather than the positivy and the benefits and in turn, contributed greatly to our untimely demise. Beauty gone Beast.

I can’t even bare to muster how much of a monster I have been for the last two months of our relationship. I never understood the degree of hurt and frustration I put this person through, this person who I love with all my heart and soul and has done nothing but love me in the same intensity or even greater in spite of myself. D sure had his flaws and I have to admit that as minor as they are, they still played their role effectively in waking up this darkness in me. This darkness that I didn’t even know existed – insecurities, immaturities, unreasonable expectations and demands… Basically your age-old recipe for disaster. I knew it affected him, of course. He was always completely honest about it. I just failed to see how horrible I’ve gotten to the point that what could’ve been salvageable had I been a better girl friend/better person the last couple of months became the final straw for him. He told me he was already expecting it, that it really didn’t surprise him, that he kind of knew I would go crazy again despite multiple promises to be otherwise, despite his highest hopes that I wouldn’t… But I did. I so did. And he did what he had to do.

Even so, it came like a shocking blow to me when I finally slapped myself awake from the haze of my own selfishness and saw what I’ve done. I singlehandedly managed to lose the one person I never wanted to lose. I managed to destroy the one thing I’ve been anticipating and manifesting and praying for for close to 4 years now. I guess I wanted to be with him so bad, I put myself in all kinds of pressure to keep him that I managed to overlook one vital thing: he loved me exactly for me.

It’s been a day since that make or break week in Mexico. Four days since we broke up. If you would think being in a foreign, virtually non-english speaking country with your ex-bf whom you still love with the unwavering intensity, spending every waking moment with him, sharing the same hotel room in a paradise beach resort, sleeping in the same bed, sharing meals and countless tequila-infused drinks, knowing it’s over when you could’ve easily prevented it, aching to touch him and be that close to him again when you were exactly doing just that mere days ago or even hours ago, aching to the point that you just clutch your chest as if preventing your heart’s broken pieces from puncturing your skin, to the point of shaking yourself awake from the nightmarish situation you doomed yourselves in, bending your mind so that somehow you can turn back the time and say “Okay” when he said “Please babe let’s not fight about this” and just hugging him and telling him sorry and that you love him… If you think that’s torture, bet your bottom dollar it was. It truly was. That kind of ongoing regret when you know you could’ve easily turned it all around by the things you could’ve said or did but somehow chose not to makes you question why you’re regretting it when your actions obviously proved that you wanted that to happen. I can never fully grasp the power of one’s subconscious but mine was obviously powerful enough to compel me to walk away when I know and was fully aware that I could’ve just let it go and stayed.

I wanted to be with him, 100%. I still do. I love him without question. I know he’s that person for me. I know the last thing I want is to lose him again but I managed to do that anyway. Deep inner issues are obviously at hand and I know now I have to deal with them myself independent of him. He knew this. And though I know it’s some sort of relief for him to be without me, I do believe that he sincerely would’ve preferred otherwise. He stayed with me the entire time, had really in depth conversations about my deep-seated issues and why they sprung up. And though I know it killed him every second he was with me (because it killed me too), I saw and experienced for the first time in my mess of a life what it’s like to be truly loved and cared for in that way, you know, when “I really love/care for you” are just not empty words… That kind of self-sacrifice became such a beacon of light for me enough to believe that maybe I’m not that bad after all; that despite my unbelievable fuck-ups, I must’ve done something right. You don’t just get that unconditional kind of love/care from another person out of nowhere… I must’ve done something right.

I held out for that one person I always knew I wanted. I didn’t settle for anybody who just happened to be there. I was loved for all the reasons a person could and should be loved. I’m still so amazed by his capacity to love I can only wish I expressed my appreciation enough.

From a text convo I had with my best girl friend earlier:

K: Seriously why is this love shit so hard? Is it bc we’ve evolved into such neurotics? I bet our parents were too busy surviving to deal with shit like this

Me: Seriously!!! You know how we feel so bad for them for marrying so young n missing out? Maybe that’s how it’s really supposed to be… Pick the one you want, commit, do everything in your power to make it with each other. We’ve all become so fearful n I don’t know why

K: Yeah we got it all wrong

Me: Or maybe not haha who knows really. You know what though? When D stayed with me the entire time despite being broken up n hurt, for the first time I kind of got a glimpse of how it must be like to be married. Like you just stay together no matter what

K: Yes! It’s supposed to be like that!

Me: Even if you just wanna escape, you stay. Even if being with that person in the same room kills you, you stay. And when I realized that, maybe it’s really not so bad… Now I kinda understand why marriage is so impt to a lot of people

K: We sound crazy. All understanding the idea but not actually doing it

Oh man. Still don’t know where to go from here. I’m still so broken. But I owe it to myself, to him, and to the goodness of what we had to heal. I fully intend to heal but I know i have to forgive myself first.

I couldn’t even begin to fathom how the future looks like or how I would feel if it stares me in the face tomorrow or next month, six months from now, 30 years from now. I guess I just have to have faith that no matter what it is, I will be strong and whole enough to face it and not break down. And smile. Should be enough resolution for tonight at least.