Spectacles (so many formatting problems!--sorry)

My eyes have started age-related changes so now I wear

purple spectacles usually askew on my head and see

everything blurry up close without them. Perhaps it’s

made me turn more internal to see and process all the

visions inside instead of outside for these past 15 years

in medicine and moming and wifing and lifing.

  I feel somehow now like I’m about to implode inside

though nothing looks different externally

(except perhaps the spectacles). 

Working in this small town and living here,

I see story bubbles above the heads of those I

know and imagined ones above the heads

of those I don’t.  “She has a disabled daughter

and her husband was the love of her life and

her helpmate through all those challenges. 

He died last year from brain cancer and now

she’s in this life-time of caregiving alone.”

“He feels hollow inside despite going through

all the life motions masterfully.”  “She has

cancer.  We’d been looking for months.  And

despite my feeling in my clinical gut that she

had it, a scan that I thought would show it did

not, so we spent time looking for other

causes and then circled back to find the cancer

I’d originally suspected.  I’m not sure she’ll

make it.  I wonder if I should have followed my

intuition more despite the negative scan.” 

“They have just lost a pregnancy.”

Not all of it is dramatic. “He’s allergic to bees.”

“She has high cholesterol but refuses to take

medicine, so far.” “They are anti-vax.” 

The stories accumulate and begin to overlap with others."
"She’s drinking too much alcohol and I only know

because her husband is also under my care and

told me in confidence. “He’s struggling with

sex-addiction and his family is reeling from the

struggle of acceptance and anger.” There are stories

everywhere.  Those I don’t know, my busy mind

can imagine.  Though I would prefer the thoughts to be quieter. 

It gets to the point where I pull back from the stories and

wonder what actually matters among all of this. I feel

adolescent and existential and angsty.  I don’t know

where to take it or who to tell, if anyone. The restlessness

inside though makes me want to scream while I greet

everyone with the same smile everyday.  Everyday,

the same. What will quiet this?  A new challenge?  A move? 

A deeper internal examination?

I no longer have the luxury of isolation.  I can’t withdraw

without hurting people who love and need me.  I can’t

leave without the tower of our lives crumbling. 

Decisions now have a wider ripple–a closer ripple that runs into the future. 

I’m unhappy with the direction our marriage has taken. 

I don’t want to live out this path on its current trajectory.

  M now barely leaves the house and balks at any change

or suggestions to alter our course.  I ask what he wants in

10 years and he says he’d like to maybe be writing a book. 

Which he’s said for the past 14 years.  He says he doesn’t

have time, but he games for 10-12 hours per day most days. 

I don’t understand the balance nor the choices.  Addiction

throws all logic off-center so perhaps that is it. 

I’ve learned that when a patient has a story that is rumpled

and disjointed and confusing, they eventually confide that

they have an addiction problem.  Alcohol, food, cocaine. 

The addiction pulls everything into focus.  Then it makes sense.

  All the bad decisions suddenly seen through the lens of

the disease are comprehensible.  

Is that what happens so close to me that I can’t see it–or am

too resentful and frustrated to admit and address?  He reluctantly

agreed to see a couples therapist, so this should  be interesting. 

He blames me for many problems and I’m certainly not blameless.

  Nor am I alone in blame.  And actually, blame does not even

seem to be a useful emotion.  Like guilt–useless.  

I try to learn compassionate communication.  Come to the

conversation with genuine curiosity of what the other person

is thinking and feeling.  I practice all day long with patients

and friends.  At a little distance, it’s easy.  Too close, though,

and it gets blurry and indistinguishable from myself and

I don’t have spectacles to bring that anger and discontent into

a focus that is connected with a cause that I can solve.  

I’m tempted with what I know are bad decisions as a portal

to excitement.  I feel vulnerable to these choices because

the current state of being does not feel right or full or meaningful.