Life in the ER

Doubt is a funny little bugger.

This past Friday, had to take more than just one deep breath, which is unusual for me, considering that the clinical space has always been my home, the place where I am most comfortable and where I have always felt I've had the most solid footing. The summer, apparently, had changed all of that without my realizing.

Failure is also a funny little thing.

For one thing, not everyone defines it the same way. In academia, it's scoring below a preset standard. Einstein says that you only truly fail when you give up and to others, failure simply means not being successful, which can then be split into a variety of different definitions all of which should have no influence on the way you live your life. But they do. And sometimes it's difficult to rise above something so small as doubt and failure because of the way they make you feel--because of the way you make yourself feel.

For the first time ever, I felt small when I walked into the hospital. I felt that people could see my failure and all my doubts written all over my body. I felt like they looked at me, could smell a failing grade within a ten-foot radius and then wrote me off. I was afraid that my patients would see it; that my clinical professor would see it and that other students would simply equate me to an academic leper and leave me for the wolves in the depths of sewage at the foothills of Assisi. And then I took a deep breath. And then another one. And then one more and I walked to my assignment for the day, the pediatric emergency room and stopped thinking.

And that's when the magic happened. That's when my doubts turned into desire, my failure became forgotten and when the person inside of me who was so afraid dropped all those chains and ran forward at full speed because she remember that she loved something. The validation I felt in the six hours I was sitting in that ER with patients happened continuously throughout the day and each patient gave me a little more love and a little more reassurance with every kind word, every newly learned skill and every mom and dad who thanked me for watching their baby as they ran to get a cup of coffee after a very long night at home.

And the little hands that reached out to hold your fingers and the small smiles and giggles shared only by those in Babyland and the arms reaching out to embrace you because they felt safe in your arms in the big, scary hospital were priceless. And so were the minutes spent making balloon gloves and watching Dora, Disney and Cartoon Network. All the little questions, the pointing and touching things and their plain curiosity was fascinating. Explaining how to use a stethoscope in Spanish and watching their eyes light up when they hear the beating of the heart or the sound of breath in your lungs is indescribable.

Doubt and failure are funny little things, but they can be overcome. Because I belong where my hands can hold little hands and speak in the language of toddlers, schoolkids and teens and because I dedicated my life to these kids a very long time ago.

248.

Beginnings are difficult.

I think my heart is a little heavy, but not in a bad way. So many things have been happening so quickly, I've hardly had time to take breath let alone think about anything! I moved back to campus about a month ago for our annual Resident Assistant Summer Training, this year cleverly themed "rugRAts!" and we had the time of our lives. For the first time since I've joined the staff, I've really felt like all twenty-five of us have bonded and are really working to help each other out, support each other and enjoy each other's company--on and off the job.

And now, three weeks into the semester and it really just hit me--this is my senior year of college. I keep turning the thought over and over in my head, thinking that if I see it from a different perspective then it won't really feel the same, but all I'm feeling is a pit in my stomach and a little heaviness in my heart and an excitement that my brain isn't quite ready to process. So much has happened between the end of the spring semester, my ridiculously action-packed and fun summer and the beginning of this semester, that finally having a chance to sit back and look at everything objectively is beginning to freak me out. In a good way.

There are a lot of things I am nervous about. But it's not the typical college worry of Oh my gosh, what am I going to do, I need a job, I need an apartment, I don't know how I'm going to function outside the confines of the fake world I've been living in for four years...my worries are more about people and places, rather than my place, if that makes any sense. You see, my two closest friends are graduating with me, but many of my close friends are campus are younger than me and their reaction to talking about my graduating is not talking about it at all. I was surprised in the beginning, but I realized that I feel the same way they do. I literally feel like in eight months, I am going to be friendless and alone because my home and heart will be with them. Not even in this place, in this dormitory or at this school, but with the people who belong here; the people I belong with.

I can't even believe how quickly this first month is moving for me. In the blink of an eye, I'll be celebrating a wedding, Thanksgiving and heading home for Christmas and then, I'll be down to four months of my undergraduate career left.

I think about where I was the last time I was a senior--the acceptances that I declined, the chances I didn't take and the leap of faith I did take in coming to this school, despite the fact that it was not an Ivy League, top tier or even well-known at all. And then I look at where I am now, the people whom I love and they who love me back and if you asked me to do it again, I wouldn't change a thing.

In fact, I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. 248 days.