Monday, December 30, 2013

A Year in Pictures

Sitting here, reflecting on 2013, the first thing I thought of was…nothing.  What happened this year?  I mean, seriously?  I tried to think back through the months, waiting for the re-rememberance of some awful tragedy or gut-wrenching sadness and for the first year in a very long time, couldn't remember a single thing.  Sometimes boring is good.  Sometimes boring gives us the space for all the tiny, infinitesimal ways that we grow into the calmer, brighter, and more whole version of who we can actually be.

January and February
I ran my first 5k - sub-30 minutes and I was quite proud.
Superstorm Nemo dropped three feet of snow and CT failed utterly on the clean-up, but we had a ball sledding and trying to stay warm.
March
The first hints of spring.
April
Post half-marathon.
May
Memorial Day weekend hiking trip - it snowed!
June
Planted and grew my first adult garden.  It was a ton of work, but the fresh vegetables and shelf full of canned tomatoes were definitely worth it.
July
Cherry picking
Happy dog
August
Wildlife…in suburbia.
A wonderful visit home at my parents' house on the lake.
September
I made a lot of pie this year.
October, November, December
The new view.
I hate moving.
Thanksgiving homework help.

The love of my life.
2012 Wrap Up

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Taking Part

Decorating for holidays is one of those things that - like cooking my own food and taking cough medicine voluntarily - always makes me feel like I'm play-acting at being an adult.


And then I remind myself that being an adult, like being a midwife, is a whole lot of acting like something you don't quite feel is legitimate until some day you wake up and realize you don't remember ever being anything else.


Tomorrow is my last day at my clinical site.  I will miss everyone there, but especially my patients.  My mind reels when I think about all the women that I will care for in this lifetime and how even the dozens from the last few months will fade into the background of my memories so soon.  The human heart cannot hold them all.  At least, not with faces and names intact.


As I battle through finals and not feeling well and the penetrating cold that has dropped over New Haven, bringing snow and ice and slate gray days, I am reminded to be grateful for warm slippers, Skype calls with Richard, and cats that while they may have a personal vendetta against the Christmas tree, are still very effective foot warmers.  The end of the year always brings with it a bit of panic (for me, at least), as I grasp to hold on to what seems to be flying by, struggling to keep pace with time's inevitable march.  My school friends and I sit in the warm car in my school's icy parking lot before going inside for a truly punishing exam.  We take deep breaths and tell each other, "The time will pass anyway.  All we have to do is go in there, and be a part of it."

Cheers, to being a part of it.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

The Cold Has Come

I avoid walking down my street now, in the direction that I paced a well-worn path into over the past year and change.  When I walk past his old place and reflexively look up to see if the lights are on, my breath catches in my throat.  The windows are dark.  No one lives there now.

I lay here in my bed that has barely been slept in for a year and even with a cat at my feet, it feels too big and too cold.  I stay up too late, avoiding the nightly challenge of falling asleep without his solid warmth at my back.  I wait until the last possible second, until I've already guaranteed I'll be exhausted for school in the morning before I turn out the light and curl around my still cramping belly, my uterus apparently deciding to take several months to acclimate to my new IUD.

I don't want to wish away my time here at school.  I don't want to, and yet I find myself doing just that. I see him on some weekends, and for a blissful three packed days of Thanksgiving, and it's wonderful and reassuring and always, always too short.

I want to be there, in his bed, with the sunrise pouring through the windows over the buildings of a city that is starting to, maybe, feel like home.

I tell myself, here is good, too,  and, here is where you need to be, and several times, there are worse things in life than a long-distance relationship.

My toes curl as another cramp rips through me, and all I want is his hand there, holding me in.

I miss him.


Edit: Yeah, not pregnant.