Heart Block: Digoxin, Dating, Distraction

Like most of these musings, I had the intent to go to bed.

I gave it 12 minutes, or about 3 repeats of the same super cliche borderline Emo parading as alternative EchoSmith song, before I threw off the covers and climbed out, the familiar glow of this light emitting diode as I open the screen, log into Blogger, pretty sure this kind of post is one I make a conscious effort to avoid composing because

1)I will ramble when prompted by feelings of fervor and
2)I will ramble when I'm generally distracted and
3)I will ramble when I'm a little sad and
4)I will definitely ramble when I'm trying to procrastinate for an exam (our second/last/50% of your grade GI test on Tuesday)

But mainly I have, and try to, avoid compositions that dance around the subject of doling unsolicited dating advice in medical school because no one's path or circumstance is ever quite the same.  There is too much inconsistency in individual needs and wants, superficial or primal or genuinely well-intentioned.  So this won't be an entry about advice (it never really is, anyway).  Rather, I will vaguely share my sentiments, because they are the ones that have kept me up at night, the ones I pretend don't bother me, the ones that I can easily attribute to stress or the "anxiety-of-medical-school-la-la-la," and no one will ask anything further, but you, Reader, have the anonymity and freedom of nodding your head in agreement, clucking your tongue at the effeminacy of an issue that revolves around heartache, and neither one of us have to know.

But I bring it up because the distraction of all this is a very real thing; maybe you've experienced it, or will, or are fortunate enough to have not had to.

When I moved here, in a sense, it was very liberating.  2,400 miles of distance between anything remotely semblant of home, including but not limited to failed relationships, the relationships in limbo, the cusp-of-something-but-this-would-be-a-bad-idea-maybe-on-your-Christmas-break? relationships.  All of those were snipped, left at LAX if not further, some by choice and some with a little more reluctance.  But either way, it didn't matter.  I got to go and move forward with my life and anything that wasn't Philadelphian or Osteopathic or in a textbook was frivolous, and that was just fine.

We all know that integrating yourself in a new city (for some of you, maybe just a new school like PCOM-the premise remains the same) is multifactorial: your psychological happiness is pyramidal; what is most important to you may differ from your neighbor, but finding friendship and concomitant self-sufficiency constituted my base.  Those were easy.  It takes time to foster, to convince people you aren't a psychopath obsessed with Cat Videos or whatever, but ultimately, you find your group and your groove, your study spouse and your coffee place and it works.

And you find someone, whomever, that is not just your group.  Maybe you find them outside of school, and you silently thank God that they're not talking about test grades or how annoying Tegrity can be and you appreciate the diversity in conversation for once, but for whatever reason (probably time, lack thereof, probably a growing disinterest, probably a raging conflict of passing CMBM vs. Man-who-doesn't-go-to-your-med-school), you let that fish off your rod, and that too, works.

And that transient distraction, you say: "It was for the better."  And it was!  It was for the better.  Your grades go up, you re-integrate into your group, you prepare for summer, your countdown begins to focus less on a person and more on the general freedom from a curriculum that has decided when you can hang out with someone, and where.  You look forward to the options, even though you aren't necessarily obliged to exercise that freedom with anyone in particular.

And between deafening pub conversations, flops of IPA-compelled awkward text messages you wish you could erase, somewhere amidst too many manipulative mind-games from people you don't really see a longitudinal future (<--I hate that word, by the way.  Everyone will take that to mean marriage when really, future means like, two hours from now, a week from now) with, at some point between frequent hall passings and coincidental meetings and weeks of trying to convince yourself that you are DEFINITELY not attracted to that person, no, no way, you must be bored, or desperate, or what is wrong with you, maybe you're sick?
Weeks of that and you say...eh, maybe. Ok, maybe I am interested.  Or maybe I'm bored.  Or both.

And then your 'maybe' will succumb to, yes, that was deliberate.  I was not acting under duress, I can admit to myself that it's okay to be attracted to someone who is not your archetype, in aesthetic or personality or otherwise.  You can admit that it is okay to deviate from your norm. It's ok to not know where it's going.  It's ok to enjoy the moment...so long as it stays enjoyable.  Therein lies a lot of what I'm trying to tell you.

Here is that point in the post where I could take one of two roads.
1)I could make this extremely allegorical: talk in ambiguous phrases and put a bunch of asterisks next to names of those involved for the sake of privacy
2) Or, I could make this a blog that berates the modern day casual relationship: the title-less, ill-defined parameters of kids (I guess we're adults?) who hook up and the gray area in between all those feelings of owing someone consistency but being too afraid to ascribe them a real place in your life, on your shelf.

I actually don't feel like doing either of those things. I don't have to name names, heck, I don't even have to allude to them.
I think, personally, it's more important to explain to you that my own sense of distraction, the one that makes it hard to think sometimes about Hepatitis or Shigella or my Case Conference, the one that makes it hard to stay asleep, is more to do with something I realized about myself, more than the person(s) that inspired those feelings.

There is a feeling of inadequacy associated with failure in romance, however you want to define that, I don't really care.  But there can be plenty of feelings of inadequacy with a currently standing romance too; one that needs not be terminated before you start feeling less like yourself. Before you feel like someone noticed something in you that you are convinced is erroneous, assured that you are being misread.

I have always been of the mind that friendships/relationships/like/love/general affability should be two things:

It should be easy.
It should be voluntary.
But most importantly, it should be easy. Because it should be wanted, not coerced, not manipulated, not obligatory, not forced.

One of my favorite bloggers (ew, yea, I just said that), Mark Manson, has an 8 minute read that I promise has relevance here.  He writes:

"Why would you ever be excited to be with someone who is not excited to be with you? If they’re not happy with you now, what makes you think they’ll be happy to be with you later? Why do you make an effort to convince someone to date you when they make no effort to convince you?
What does that say about you? That you believe you need to convince people to be with you?
You wouldn’t buy a dog that bites you all the time. And you wouldn’t be friends with someone who regularly ditches you. You wouldn’t work a job that doesn’t pay you. Then why the hell are you trying to make a girlfriend out of a woman who doesn’t want to date you? Where’s your self-respect?"

And while this doesn't necessarily mirror every aspect of the matter on my mind, it has some bearing on why I even bothered to start rambling in the first place.

Sometimes, it feels like I do a lot of work to convince people how simple the non-existent rules of engagement are.  We are all in our second decade-ish, some of us +/- a few years, but so many of us make dating, or getting to know one another so extremely analytical. Men and women can spend so much time over-thinking every nuance of eachother's behavior than we actually end up organically behaving.

Dating should be easy, it should revolve around the principle of enjoying the physical/emotional/filial company of one another.  Sure, this is easier said than done in medical school.  You are in competition with time, with sleep, with food, with class, with whatever.  And maybe this is too bright eyed bushy tailed of me, but I think it isn't that hard.  It doesn't have to be, anyways.

It shouldn't have to operate under a schedule, it shouldn't have to be planned or riddled with feelings of debt of gratitude or forced reciprocity. It shouldn't have an expectation, a set of Commandments suddenly integrated just because you one-upped from Level Friendship to Level More-than-Friendship.

It should (and it can), be uncomplicated, devoid of new expectations that weren't already apparent to begin with.  It shouldn't incite radical change, per se.  It shouldn't force you to prove that all you want is  to be benevolent, that you don't have an ulterior motive.  It shouldn't do many of these things, because at the end of the day, it should only do one thing:

It should make you happy.

We should do things, engage in acts of kindness or in the interest of others because we want to, not because we feel we ought to.  Perhaps I am alone in this notion, perhaps it is because I come from a non-nuclear family but more likely,  it is because I apply my basic rules of friendship to my basic "rules" (also, the grossest word ever.  There aren't any rules; this isn't prison) of romance.  You should want to make someone happy (in any capacity you want: high fives in the hallway, horizontal dancing, drinking buddy, or even leaving them alone when they're having an antisocial day).  You shouldn't impose yourselves on them, but you should permit yourself to add to the pleasantness of their day.

And all of those things I fervently believe.  But when you have to explain it, endlessly, tirelessly, it makes you feel as perhaps you are the only person who operates under this idea.  That maybe this very simple exercise of your ideology of improving the lives of others, but namely, this one person, is one rooted in naivete.  And then you go home and think; do I have an agenda? And you realize, no, you still don't, but the doubt instilled in you, the uncertainty you are dealt is enough to make you feel like maybe being nice without a cause, without an end-goal is not what you're supposed to do, because the one person you direct it towards expects that you must want something, that it can't be that simple.  And that is what gets me out of bed, gets me typing.

It is the thing that makes me close my eyes and be mad, mad at myself for being mad at Tommy for not listening to my prayers, annoyed that I have prayed over and over and over for a dream where he could make a cameo, because I'll never get one in real life again, and mad I miss my friend who I could talk to about matters of the heart.  And I get upset at myself for naively wishing I could talk to my deceased friend, when I have plenty of living ones, but I don't want to burden them with the trivialities of all this.  And then before I know it, my cheeks are hot and I am annoyed that this is still an issue, 3 years later and I still feel sick to my stomach realizing someone I had a genuine friendship, a love for, but not necessarily with, cannot be here to talk to me about a very stupid moment of feeling stupid about something that is probably not even a big deal.

And already, I feel like I have made it too personal, but then again, that is the point of this blog.  Because there is so much more to your medical education that just the mind numbing, auto-pilot nature of attending class, of going home, or returning to study, or putting in your time with your nose buried in your books.
It has so many dimensions, some of them are inspiring and filled with reward, and a sense of accomplishment, and the other ones can be like this, where you feel empty, a little sad that things are not going as easily as you hoped, despite your effort to make everything as seamless as possible, for both you and Person #2.

But that's ok.  
And that same dang EchoSmith song has been playing since 11:15PM, it's 12:42 AM and I have to get up soon, and I'm pretty sure I know literally every lyric of this embedded in my subconscious.

Til tomorrow,
Be happy, be healthy, and please
Be simple.