Today I registered and checked in a handful of patients who were showing up for their very first pre-natal appointments.
I also held a woman in my arms as she wept and said, "my baby... I lost my baby...".
I heard a pregnant woman curse a medical assistant, in Spanish, to her partner, presumably thinking that the MA wouldn't understand her language. Well. She did.
I attended a meeting where the manager shit on every single person's ideas for improvement.
But hey.
I get every weekend off, AND I don't have to pick up extra shifts just to make ends meet. So there's that.
A couple of year ago I was pondering, with my soul mate, the concept of living in the middle of a marsh in New Hampshire vs living in a big city. I didn't want either one - I wanted something in the middle.
The marsh was "in the middle" of the ocean and the land. Not good enough.
The big city was in the middle of strangers and dangers vs isolation and alone-ness. Not good enough.
Maybe it wasn't "in the middle" that I didn't like, but the concept of being stuck between what I wanted vs what I needed. The whole "being in the middle" was uncomfortable to me. And it's not wrong, it's just who I am.
Yet, here I am, here, in the middle.
In the middle, in a new job, and wondering if I've made the right choice.
Excitement and Loss. Comradery and disconnect. Support, and disregard. Kindness, and coldness. I am so very much "in the middle" that it sometimes hurts my heart, makes my soul fall into puddles at my feet, makes tears fall from my eyes as I drive home from work. It keeps me awake, late at night, or wakes me from a sound sleep and makes me ponder choices in the soft light of dawn before my alarm rings.
I don't like this middle ground I'm in. I don't like the choices on either side of it tho. I am floundering - and it's a dangerous place to be where I might make a decision based on "feel" vs "fact".
I "feel" distrustful, sad, worried, disappointed but I also have every weekend off, holidays off, and don't need to pick up extra hours just to make ends meet.
I'm perfectly imperfectly balanced in the middle right now.
So uncomfortable. So shaky and worried and imagining the bright, safe lights of the big city while stuck landlocked uncomfortably and peering at the marsh, warm and soft and protective.
I'm in between and I'm not very good at sitting here in the discomfort.
