A Well-Adjusted Person

So I have both this week and next week (Thanksgiving week) off from my clinical rotations. This means that I can let myself think and write and listen to music. What an oddity.

I finally tweeted (with my alternate account) about the (technically) sexual assault. It came about as I was finding myself quite sober last night as I read through past Juice Journals. It is sad to reflect on the changes in friends and myself. My faith was previously my whole thing, and though God still remains the drive behind everything, I have spent so much more time outside of the church since then that it often feels more like an implied thing. The fortunate thing for me, the continuous pull toward that faith, is that I know that the most fulfilled version of myself is the one I find on mission trips.

Though that perspective feels selfish at times, well, it seems like a pretty tame selfishness to possess. When I told a close friend from high school about the sexual assault trauma and processing the other day, he commented that I seem like "a really well-adjusted person". And honestly, any truth to that statement likely comes from this forward perspective of mine, this knowledge that the life around me is a temporary thing, that I am training for something greater. And I do not mean that in a boastful way, just in the sense that I need to be strong and wise and emotionally baggage-free and spiritually sound enough to keep it together when the unpredictable happens and I am the only one with the training to make the difference.

That perspective has kept me from casual dating. How could I go out with someone if I was unsure whether they could handle the life I hope to live? Even if they can handle the baggage-free spiritual side and the talents involved in outgoing missionary work, I also have the other social side, which involves drinking and being comfortable with people who partake in various recreational drugs, or are part of the LGBTQ community, or belong to another religion such as Islam. It is hard to find someone else who is as versatile as that while still holding onto their faith. It is a constant difficulty to walk this line of belief and acceptance of everyone, in part because you face the decision of whether to challenge your own beliefs in order to incorporate theirs, or to have in the back of your mind the sad conclusion that they may not join you when you go to heaven. And at that point, you stray dangerously close to the point of judging. And since "judge not" was a command, that ironically means that you are sinning, even if your original line of thinking was intended to keep yourself properly aligned in order to avoid such a thing.

So that is the mindset that keeps me from a the multitude of these life experiences into which so many others seem intent on blindly leaping. I am aware that I miss out on a lot, but I also retain all of my friends and my generally optimistic view of people around me. When you have an ex, your opinion of them declines greatly, even if you thought the world of them up until the end. You weigh their words differently than you would the words of a close friend, and if the words seem wrong or hurtful, you allow them to have a far more personal impact because you have gifted that person with the privilege of knowing you more intimately.

In the slightly more professional realm of topics, I keep meaning to write about patient encounters and interactions with staff and physicians, but the inspiration just tends to sap out of you at the end of the day.