Also I learned where a bigger Target is, and there’s a Big Lots and World Market right next door. So Ainsley got a new Pride tank top (Target has Pride wear and they get so much of our business because of it!) and I found a relatively inexpensive set of outdoor furniture that we put under the carport - 2 chairs, a loveseat and a table. And a nifty outdoor rug/mat as well. All it’s lacking is a citronella candle! I had a portion of my state tax refund that I wanted to use to get some outdoor furniture. I always think of my friend Shannon chastising me for giving the government an interest free loan (that’s what tax refunds are, apparently) but given the tight margins of my life, I wasn’t going to save on my own so instead I’ll just thank them for the service and appreciate my new outdoor space!
Of course, the kids are leaving a week from tomorrow, they’ll be gone for 8 weeks. Just as they are getting really settled in! But the pool with still be here, the outdoor community theatre will still be here, they will come back and maybe plug back into their lives pretty much where they are leaving off right now. That’s my hope, at least. We’ll see. It won’t be as hard as last year!
I got a haircut! I heard about this salon and this gal from a few people, it was very reasonably priced and she cut curly hair very well. It’s funny because I didn’t get a lot of length taken off but when I got up there were PILES of hair at my feet! I have soooo much hair! But now now, now I have a reasonable amount of hair. It’s been about 14 months since I got a haircut but this place is inexpensive, really good, and you can make appointments online so I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to be better groomed despite my busy schedule!
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This is the kids’ last weekend in NC for a couple of months, mostly they are enjoying being done with school while packing and cleaning at a snail’s pace. I’m distracted by studying for Step 3 so they’ve got some slack to work at their own paces. Their rooms & public spaces are slowly getting clean, laundry is getting done and packing prep is starting to happen. Unfortunately blogging about parenting a teen means there are parts of the story I can’t tell because they aren’t mine to share. I’m having a bit of one of those times with one of my kids right now. It is something of a big deal but a lot of it will be taken care of by the temporary displacement they are about to experience. I have had more conversations with my co-parent in the last week than probably the last 6 months combined. He was a bit taken aback by the news of teen drama and the notion that that they were going to be out there “just for a visit” was shattered mercilessly. I mean clearly he knew that the honeymoon phase would not last 8 weeks, that there will be snark, PMS, hangriness (dear lord, this family is full of people who are terrible about self-regulating our blood sugars!), irrationality, health problems and moodiness. But knowing that there was a pretty big issue he was inheriting right off the plane, that was harsh. He took it well. I still have to tell him that we had lice and he will need to do head checks next week. I should get on that… :-)
I’m grateful that my troubled child is going to get some time with Dad and that the impetus of the end of the school year stress and the imminent departure was able to unroof some poor coping and existential pain. Admitting you have a problem is the first step right? So we’re on to step 2 now. Fortunately for this particular flavor of problem, co-captain and I are firmly aligned. The messaging will be united and the East coast/West coast plans for addressing the issues will dovetail nicely with each other.
I’m looking forward to having a break. I will miss my kids like gangbusters, but I am also pretty excited to go on dates, clean my house, get some residency shit done, study and get started on my new life as a Second Year Ob/Gyn Resident without the omnipresent distraction of daily parenting.
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One of the things that is harder about blogging honestly like I was in the beginning is that I feel less anonymous. I know there are people reading this, including people who I work with. I have been hesitating about pushing into this latest soft spot and digging around because I don’t want people at work to think I’m pathetic, that I’m not handling my life as well as I want them to think I am. I don’t want pity, but I want a place to speak truth to my hardship. So don’t pity me, I’m just more honest about the hard parts of life than most people. We’ve all got ‘em. Here’s some of mine.
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Today I’m remembering what it feels like to be relocated for a year. I remember that I felt like I should be more settled than I am. I remember thinking that I didn’t have the friends, networks and connections I wished I had. I remember thinking I’d feel more settled than I do now. I remember that eventually I realized it really takes a few years (in Portland I settled in 3, it took 3 years to get settled in Portland), more than I wanted it to take. So today I’m sad that I don’t have friends, I don’t have people to spend time with when I’m not working or parenting. I’m tired of having to do the work to make friends. The constant putting yourself out there, asking people if they are available and for some reason or another not connecting. And working not to take it personally. I’m lonely. Maybe my co-residents don’t invite me to socialize with them because they think I don’t want to. Maybe they don’t want me to. Maybe I really don’t want to. Who knows. But they don’t ask. At least I don’t think they do. Maybe they did in the early months when I was overwhelmed and couldn’t leave lonely kids to have my own life while they were isolated and sad. Maybe I missed it and now it’s too late. There are a few people who aren’t residents who I have connected with, but they all have full lives that were going strong before I got here. Trying to merge into their flow often means they are not available when I am and when they are available, maybe the are making plans with the people already in their lives, but whatever they are doing, they aren’t connecting with me.
It takes longer than a year, that’s what I’m remembering. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen. It just means it hasn’t happened yet.
This too shall pass.
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Like I said a few days ago, I’ve been talking with T (that’s my co-parent) more this week than I have in a while. We’re talking a lot about the kids but there have been personal conversations as well. I really missed the easy communication between us. Now that we are not as wrapped up in how much the other has disappointed us or not met our needs, we are able to talk more like the old friends we are. When you’ve known someone 25 years, there’s an ease to talking. And some predictability too. He’s working a lot. Which means he’s skipping meals and being hyper-focused on work. Which doesn’t bother me the way his poor self-care when he’s busy used to. Why did it bother me so much? Because it scared me, if he wasn’t going to take care of himself, then maybe he’d die, or at least not live as long as he could. There was an aspect of my control and co-dependency that was triggered by something as little as him skipping lunch. If he didn’t do it, it was one more thing that I had to do. Did he ask me to do it? No! In fact, we probably would have been better served if I had not taken psychological ownership of things that were clearly his to take care of. Now he tells me he skips lunch and I find that reaction has been deactivated. It isn’t that I don’t care about him, or that I no longer want him to live as long as possible, but that wasn’t ever really a rational fear. We were too closely intertwined. It held us both back. Together we became better versions of ourselves than we probably could have alone when we were in our 20s and 30s. Now in our 40s we are becoming better versions of ourselves than we could while we were together. Not going to lie, watching him become better fills me with pride and deep sadness. It makes me miss those great decades when we were able to grow ourselves together. I’m never not going to be sad that we had to part for each of us to be our best selves. The rough edges to the sadness are slowly smoothing over time. Every so slightly, it isn’t as hard to be sad now as it was 6 months ago.
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Something great is happening at work: I’m getting good at my job! I did a repeat cesarean recently at which I got only positive feedback. Even with regard to one part of the surgery that I’m still working on. I’m doing everything right, the muscle-mind connection just hasn’t clicked yet. (Getting the baby’s head out the uterine incision is a specific combination of wrist movements, flexing the baby’s head, being a lever and a shoehorn that I understand in theory but just can’t quite put together unless everything is perfectly aligned) On the theme of anniversary reflections, I remember what it was like to do a cesarean last year, I had the stamina to do about the first half of the surgery, then when I had revealed the uterus, I was HAPPY to pass off the scalpel and have someone else finish. It taxed the limit of my stamina and concentration to get that far. Now I can do the whole thing, ask for the instruments, even figure out which suture we are using and how many knots it needs (except PDS, I still can’t tell PDS from monocryl, but I do know it needs more knots!). And during that same shift, I cut my first episiotomy. This tiny infamous procedure looms large in the psyche of women. In this case, it was a very necessary intervention due to specific details relevant to that patient. And even though I’ve never done one, I realized it was going to be necessary, mentioned it to my attending, who listened to my whispered diagnosis and did her own assessment and agreed with my recommendation. My only reflection is that we did not have time to talk it through more with the patient. That place where babies are on the brink of being born is a tenuous one, it is hard to monitor their heart rates, they often experience the most stress we see and we often have to act quickly to get babies out. Given the totality of the details of that case, the episiotomy was a small matter. In reality (it was only about a centimeter long) and symbolically (there were other things that happened that mattered more to her during delivery). But it was a big deal for me to be able to see something I’d never seen before and successfully evaluate and address it!
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