Mind reader

When I was a teenager, a friend used to say I could read her mind - as if I somehow had the ability to poke around in her head, and sometimes see things that even she couldn't. A close friend from a few years ago remarked something similar - that I had free access to thoughts that had never been verbalised. It was always a privilege to see inside someone, an intimacy of which few can boast.

The full moon was bright over the road as I drove into work that night and climbed into my chair, bare feet tucked up under me as I scrolled through the inside of other people's heads yet again. Silently assessing, appraising, categorising. Most of the heads I looked at were old, and the memories of a lifetime were gradually fading away. I wondered at some, as I scrolled past a dark spot, the herald of loss of a bundle of neurons, of what memory had gone with them. What moonlit walk, what tragic loss, what phone number or frisson of potential had held its place in memory.

I continued to work hard that night, steadily, playing my part in my little warm room as the patients came and went. Until he came in and I looked at his brain. His brain was young. Far younger than the brains I am used to seeing, a brain full of all the things that a young, fit, healthy, clever young person should have. Or it was once, before the accident that brought him into my care in the first place.

I wasn't in my little dark room as I looked at his head. I was in the bright room. The frigidly cold room to keep the machinery operating well. The machines that go beep were in there too as I stood at the terminal and began to scroll. And all those memories and that fun and that life and that spark were closed to me and all the people standing behind me, listening to every word I said. Until I stopped speaking and the room began to empty and the shoulders of all around me slumped. The adrenaline high that pulls you in in the middle of the night to do your best and do good futile at that point.

Where they all went I'm not sure. Some went back to work, and saw the next elderly brain that would shortly wend its way to me to delve through, others I think went home. Others went to see the family that had been woken in the middle of the night and wanted to know and to hope but couldn't. Not after my words that night.

And I sat in my little dark room and became acquainted with every part of his body. Following every line and contour. And at some point in the night I realised my cheeks were wet, as I thought of all the things that were lost. And it was important to me to do things properly, as I looked deep inside him to the parts that no one had ever seen before. To take that privilege and that honour and not take any shortcuts. Even if as I was scrolling his breaths were slowing and those around him were hearing my words from kindly mouths that have had to say them too many times before.

I drove home when the moon was still in the sky but the birds were singing and the sun was glorious through the clouds. So tired that I felt that my limbs were leaden. Few thoughts racing around a usually noisy brain as I indicated for my turnoff and parked my car. The wind chilly as I stepped out, ruffling around my ears and tickling my cheek. And it struck me again, how lucky I am to have thoughts. To record them here. To keep on having thoughts.  And the tears started again, silent ones that kept coming and coming and coming. And I cried as I saluted the sun, stretched out on my yoga mat until my biceps shook with the pain.

And I cried as I drove to the water, and ran into the choppy sea while my hair laced with seaweed and salt. But as later I lay on the sand and it pressed into my cheek the tears finally stopped. And the sun tickled along my bare skin and began to warm me from the inside out.

I can't change what happened to him. It was all over before we'd even met. And I could become cool and hardened like some of those I work with. Who look at organs and wounds and that's all they see, because there are too many sad stories. And it's not because they're lesser people or doctors or somehow innately cold. It's because they will see that tomorrow and the day after and you have to find some way or else it will break you.

But I need to know their stories. Who they are and where they've come from. I need to feel like I've earned the right to the secrets locked up inside that no one else knows. And when I find the secrets, the memories that are lost forever, I see them just for a moment, before I report them gone. And maybe it's silly and maybe it's delusional and maybe I should just buy the bottle of wine like so many others. But as I drove home under the moon tonight, the heavy golden moon, I felt the sadness shift - I did right by him. I did right by others. I will continue to keep on doing my best.

And that's my secret.

Air Kerma

I knew it was coming. The perfect storm had been brewing for weeks, and while there had been the occasional histrionic outburst, it had only ever been an opener to the main event. Today, after a tutorial that confirmed that I still have far too much to cram into my head in 5 short days than is humanly possible, I came home in the bubbling, gravid evening with the skies bruised and angry to make dinner.

We have been eating a lot of 15 minute meals lately, simple, boring food that the kids will eat and require minimal effort or brain power. I had a little more time this afternoon so I made boeuf bourguignon. Or casserole. Meat in gravy with a few vegetables.  I did it properly too, flouring the meat, preparing the vegetables, deglazing the pan with yet another half drunk bottle of wine bought to try and understand the mysteries of a glass with dinner.

It smelled fantastic. It simmered down to the perfect gravy consistency. The house smelled of red wine and garlic and beef. Perfect for a stormy afternoon. Warm and filling.

Of course, the kids refused to eat it. The Monkey making gagging noises - she hates "sauce". The Possum tasting the potato with gravy exactly once. The Elfling only ate hers under sufferance and a willingness to show up the others. I teetered on the edge. Reason completely lost and temper frayed. Ego already shattered on one front, pushing precipitously on another.

The Possum had a tantrum about something. He has them often now, his understanding of speech and language and his deficiencies in both culminating in outrage at not being understood. He stood in front of me, then climbed on top of me to put his screaming face in front of mine. He could not speak to tell me what was wrong as his tantrum had reached the state where he was only capable of emitting noise and crying. It escalated as I was incapable of understanding him. I burst into tears, and then became desperate and terrified of exploding. I put him on his bed and shut his door fearful of the way I had lost all sense of reason. I didn't yell or scream or hit, and that scared me more than if I'd done any or all of those things. I was beyond anger.

I started to shake while sobbing. My brain unable to process anything. Leaning forward, my arms holding up my torso as I rocked and sobbed. Barely aware of Bingley beside me. I retched and only just made it to the bathroom to divest the only appreciated meal of the evening into the toilet bowl. I knelt on the cold floor with the tiles digging into my knees and convulsed. My head resting against the lid as I sobbed and vomited and shook. I have never in eight years wished so very much that I could be alone. My mascara stung my eyes and my teeth hurt. Horrible suppressed memories of hyperemesis flashed across my skull making me shake more. The terrifying feeling of my body being separate from myself and losing all control. My body only a vessel for my angst until it was all gone and the familiar aching sensation filled the void.

Emptied, I turned on the shower and put my shuddering self under the spray, as hot as I could before my skin flamed and stung. Scrubbed clean and pink and hollow until the shaking had steadied and only my insides that were quivering. I brushed my teeth in the soft pyjamas I wore when I birthed the Monkey then took a deep breath, walked back into my real life and the bedtime routine. Dressed the Possum, read him his stories. Feigned interest as he counted the tigers in his book before kissing him goodnight and walking out of his room.

Then, pretense expunged, the anger returned. The desperate snotty, tearful anger. Anger at Bingley for every time he smiles condescendingly and tells me "you'll be fine". Anger at those that don't understand. Anger at the fact that I did this to myself by accepting this job and pursuing this path. Anger at the hopelessness. Anger at my brain for not being as youthful and spry as it once was. Anger at ridiculous curricula that don't cover understanding of concepts but expect memorising of tables and formulae that I will never ever use in a clinical setting.

And then, eventually, I stopped crying. It took a while. I used a lot of tissues and I haven't picked them up yet. They're in a damp, snotty pile beside me on the desk. But once I'd stopped snivelling and the fog of despair had lifted a little I was left with the "now what" part of any complete, messy meltdown.

A very large, very tired, very sensible part of me wanted to go curl up in bed. Sleep for a month and wake up in another time and place. But the bigger part, the simultaneously damaging and preserving part of me picked up my bag of study notes and text books and pulled them out. Arranged them on the desk and picked up a highlighter. Made me practice exam questions and leaf through a hefty text book and ask Bingley to give me a pop quiz.

When I say I am going to fail this exam, it is not for dramatic effect - the proportion of persons who fail is actually quite high, and my best case scenario involves failing at least some sections. Acceptance of this fact is very difficult for me to come by, as it feels, rightly or wrongly, that I have so much more to prove; when all I know for certain is that I can prove that this is a very bad idea. There's also the stubborn fact that I've never failed an exam before, and I don't particularly want to. Aside from the ego thing, if/when I fail this, I have to do it again, and more than the study and the cost, it's feeling this way for another 6 months that terrifies me. At least with hyperemesis there was a baby to cuddle at the end.

Schrodinger's Kitty

Are all beautiful things painful? The emotion that runs so deep has the power to soothe as well as slice, and I wonder how much chance there is in that... if it's God playing with his yahtzee dice, while we rattle around in the cup.

I cannot escape rainbows lately, they follow me around like some sort of technicolor omen, and it makes me laugh and wince in equal measure. They both mock and encourage me. My life some sort of weird farcical dichotomy of being. There was one over me as I drove home in hail today, some ridiculous metaphor of being. While others race for shelter I am out being battered, chasing rainbows.

This time last year I lived like I was on a tightrope, where the net shimmered beautifully below while I balanced serenely dressed in spangles. I have never felt so emotional in my life as I did a year ago, so reckless and wild, a raging storm of it. I have grown enormously in the last year - I have never been so beautiful as I am now. And all the lines and the new angles at my jaw contribute. Age is shaping me, moulding me against my will. I still don't remember how to breathe.

Sometimes in hiding from the emotion I have closed myself from looking for beautiful things, of seeing the beauty in everything, in pursuing the Gleam. But in honour of nothing, but being tired and anxious, and wanting to focus on something else, here are a few random things from my blog inspiration folder. I'm sure you all have one, and here's a glimpse of mine...

I have to know - did you dream this of me?

 Of wanting to lie with them, touch them, wake with them

My mirror friend

The hardest part? …there’s a fear that doubt will creep in, you will awaken one day and think “what the hell was I thinking?

I know it’ll get better. I wonder if it’ll ever be as good.

Reminded today of what I'm counting from

my mind is where the ghosted afterthoughts of you linger

you are still the brightest light to have shone in my sky

It's the shortest day of the year today. 
 
From tomorrow, every day will have more sunshine in it than the day before

As with other times before, Time had dissolved

I just closed my eyes for a second and disappared from reality. It was tough coming back

You're unlike anyone I've ever met, yet I feel like I've known you my entire life & beyond.

DFA

i will be frank, because i feel the need: i will take you in whatever form you are happy to share yourself with me, but i will always have, at the back of my heart, a little bit of wistfulness for more

the next day I didn't care & just held your hand for a moment

I was breathing so slowly & deeply that I may have appeared to be not breathing at all

i want words. 
 
and a tree

There was something about the beauty of the location, the company and the surrealism of having not slept and having no idea which day it was or which time. Some sort of suspended bubble that eeked itself out on the space time continuum. A beautiful lucid dream. I remember feeling my palms after all the digging in the sand, and how exfoliated and excoriated they were and the soft pain of that making me double take and realise that *this* was actually reality

Nope, in the end I cbf arguing so just went and did them.
 
QED
 
Then walked into a wall

well if one is going to be antisocial and self destructive one may as well do it antiseptically

now, when I sharpen a pencil, I enjoy the sharpness for a few seconds before deliberately softening the top so that it slides more easily on the paper

I'm perpetually glad that you appreciate the things that mean so much to me

When you're watching someone's face and they've yet to see you. The second that their eyes come into focus on your face and the connection is established: ephemeral; visceral; tangible. The way that you don't actually need to acknowledge it because it is so palpable that you can't help but know that the other knows it too

I understand gravity. Understand how it is that something so invisible can be felt so acutely. The pull towards. I never think about the fact that as I walk my feet touch the ground. It doesn't require concentration, it doesn't really require thinking. By virtue of the attraction of both bodies, the pull and force brings them together. Unintentionally. Inexplicably.

GTFOOMH

it must be strange shooting up your own vein. i look at my veins and think how easy they'd be to stick a needle in, but the idea gives me a shudder straight up the spine

i see it as a tangible edge, wispy and black but interestingly i see it against light