Super Patient

Hi Everyone,

This spring, I stumbled upon some stickers I’d gotten from the doctor’s office when I was little.  I gave most of them away to the triplets as math prizes, but I kept this one:

“This,” I told myself, “is exactly what I need to be.”  I’m sure any of you who have been around the health professions for longer than half a second are completely fed up with the “patients”/”patience” play on words.  (“Yes, I’m a doctor.  Yes, I have patients.  BUT NOT WITH THAT JOKE!”)  So my apologies for this mediocre-at-best pun.  I have a pun scale which I use to evaluate my family’s puns, and this would register somewhere between a 1 and a 2 out of 10... definitely in the category of “not worth mentioning.”  But I am mentioning it nonetheless because for me, this past year has been characterized by both kinds of “patient,” so the sticker seemed particularly appropriate.

I’ve spent much more time at the doctor’s this year than I normally do.  Since November, I have had foot surgery, and have experienced an increase in tonsil stones.  I have got the worst flu/cold/cough combo I’ve ever known, and have had chronic dry eye (or “chapped eyeballs” as my doctor explained it to me).  I have sprained my ankle, encountered random numbness in my right elbow, and my knees have started popping with every step I take.  I have discovered the hard way that I’m allergic to a certain brand of contact, and have experienced a mild resurgence of tachycardia (what my friend calls “hummingbird heart”).  The most uncomfortable issue was a cornea infection, but really, none of these things are all that serious.  And since they’ve been spread out over the course of the year, it hasn’t been nearly as dramatic as I’ve just made it sound.  But of course, my incessant English Major mind has attempted to find deep significance in these mild maladies, resonating with other aspects of my life.  For example: “Well, maybe, just maybe, you’re having trouble with your eyes because you’re in a place of uncertainty right now, and you’re having trouble seeing what’s ahead.”  Or “Perhaps your inability to walk without foot or leg discomfort indicates a concern about taking the next step in life.”  This is why they shouldn’t hire lit majors to write horoscopes.

The truth is that it’s been much harder to be the other kind of patient over this last year.  I used to think I was good at waiting.  I genuinely enjoy standing in (most) lines or looking forward to snail mail arriving.  But those experiences are enjoyable because I know a.) what I’m waiting for, and b.) more or less how long I have to wait.  Also, these are examples of waiting that I have chosen to participate in.  As I’ve been applying for jobs over the past 9 or so months, I have been forced to wait for whatever is coming up next without knowing what it will be, when it will come, or how exactly I’ll discover it.  

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Maria (as Olivia) writes to Malvolio, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”  I’m beginning to feel like I’m one of those people who needs to have virtues thrust upon me if I’m going to have them at all.  Perhaps real patience, like courage or endurance, can be achieved only by living through situations that require it.  Perhaps it’s not that we simply have patience, and then find occasions to use it, but rather that we encounter the situations, and then come through them equipped with patience.  Or maybe I’m focusing too much on the causal effect chickens have on eggs, when the opposite is equally true.  But the point is that right now, at least, I don’t feel as though I have a whole lot of choice about being patient.  I’m pretty sure that if I did, I would have chosen employment months ago.

Choice, though, is complicated.  Over the summer, I decided to move to Portland, OR, at the end of this month to live with my Hollins friend Lucy, and her sister Molly.  I’m really excited about living with them, and about living in what seems like an ideal city for my interests and stage of life.  But of course, with rent and other payments on the horizon, and no tangible job prospects, it’s feeling increasingly risky.

Over the past few months, it’s felt like I’ve been waiting in line to ride a roller coaster.  I’ve now gotten in the car, and the restraints have locked into place.  We’ve started and are chugging up the first hill.  The crest is getting closer and closer, and my adrenaline is beginning to kick in.  I’ve gone on roller coasters before, and I’ve seen people emerge from this one not only unscathed, but ecstatic.  And yet all the logic my brain can muster up does not translate to my worried tummy.  Where does choice come in at this point?  Not that I necessarily want to, but I can’t reasonably back out now.  And yet, I chose to get in the line and let the restraints lock me in the car.  Basically, it was my choice to surrender my choice.  

It’s the risk that is making patience so difficult.  It’s the possibility that even though I don’t think it will happen, even though I don’t believe it will happen, things could come crashing down in a disastrous heap.  But where the sticker helps out yet again: 

if the roller coaster does somehow come unhinged and we go tumbling through the air, I can always rely on my cape!

Have a good week!

Sarah/Mouse