Star-crossed Lovers

The two sides of the coin never really get to see each other or any one thing at the same time - and yet, they are bound to the same fate and to each other so intimately.

Thus is the love affair between patient and doctor. The doctor gets in at 6am, spends the day rounding, checking lab results, reading notes, making phone calls, scrutinizing over his diagnosis, discussing or even arguing with colleagues, going home late, thinking on the subway ride home, and laying awake worrying about his patient, wondering whether he made the right decision. The patient wakes up to the touch of cold stethescopes on his chest, spends the day staring restlessly out the window at his cancer, going over the five words the doctor spoke yesterday in his head, waiting in the repetitive noise of the beeping IV box for him to come again, calling his wife to tell her those five words he heard, wondering whether what the doctor really meant by them, staring at the clear fluid feeding into his veins that the doctor ordered, and laying awake hoping that he knew what he was talking about. And in the morning they meet for the usual five minutes of the day in a desperate exchange of information, each hoping they guessed correctly about the thoughts of the other: the doctor hoping the patient feels better, the patient hoping that the doctor is reassured. The meeting is brief. It is cold. There is relief, familiarity, disappointment, apathy, and maybe even resentment. "How are you feeling today?" "About the same." "We'll do our best to figure it out today." "OK...I hope you do."

As the meeting is cut short by the pressure of time or the lack of things to say, whichever comes first, they are both left feeling alone. The doctor wonders whether the patient realizes the extent of obsessive details that have taken place and are about to take place again that day. The patient wonders whether the doctor realizes the extent of perseverative thoughts and behaviors he will go through again surrounding the five words they just exchanged. Both obsess about whether the other gives a damn about how hard they work for the other, how much they really do care. No, they conclude. It's impossible for him to see the truth. They each obsess over the other while the other is not looking. They are the center of each other's lives. They love each other while the other is not looking, then wonder if they'll ever be loved in return. They learn to accept this.

Then there comes one brief moment when I imagine a glimpse of the birds' eye view of this perpetual battle: I feel from a distance in space the brush of air against my skin of the cosmic explosion that is the power of all the care, energy, pain, longing, and love that the two throw out for each other - the explosion that is otherwise silent to them both. For just that moment I see a beautiful dance - not a smooth or harmonious dance - but one that is full of passion, tension, and intimacy - the kind that is danced so closely it makes one tremble.

I realize I will never truly see the face of my patient, but I will continue to love him as he will go on loving me. The dance we share moves me beyond belief.

"Sorry"

My mother used to tell me, 'don't say you're sorry - change!'

I suppose she let me off from one of the most dreaded acts known to man.

It may also be one of the most potentially expressive words in the English language.
Say it too often, you're insecure. Say it too little, you're too proud. Say it too softly, you're ashamed. Say it too loud, you're resentful. You can pretty much say anything and mean anything you could ever want in just that one word.

The hard part is saying it to mean what they want you to mean...in that, it's almost impossible. I don't know if I've ever succeeded in providing the correct sounding 'sorry' to my listener. And I know there is always one that they're waiting for.

Perhaps my mother was wise enough to realize I could never produce what she was hoping for in my 'sorry' and so skipped that step entirely.

So maybe I have a bit of a developmental delay in my utterance of 'sorry's. I'm catching up these days, but how much have I longed for some special education on this stuff...

Dreams On Fire

Dreams On Fire


"You are my waking dream
You're all that's real to me
You are the magic in the world I see

You are the prayer I sing
You brought me to my knees
You are the faith that made me believe

Dreams on fire
Higher n higher
Passions burning
Right on the pyre

Once far, forever yours
Give me
All your heart
Dreams on fire
Higher n higher

You are my ocean waves
You are my thought each day
You are the laughter from childhood games

You are the spark of dawn
You are where I belong
You are the ache I feel in every song

Dreams on fire
Higher n higher
Passions burning
Right on the pyre

Once far, forever yours
Give me
All your heart
Dreams on fire
Higher n higher"

To some I'm sure this may be the cheesiest, most unrelatable song ever.

But I've never heard a song that feels closer to love. It leaves me a little speechless.

I've come to sense that all of our lives go differently, and thus all of our loves as well. I may be wrong, but if I'm right, it's a bit of a trap to go chasing after the kind of love that others seem to have and to sing about. It's everywhere: the loves of other people - and it's tempting: readily made and pre-packaged. For the longest time I've asked around and listened in this marketplace. But it's really time to grow up now, time to find my own kind of love and write my own song.

In the meantime, I'll borrow this one as food for thought.

Something to Remember

Borderline Personality Disorder:

DSMIV Criteria
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization
and devaluation.
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging.
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars
or picking at oneself.
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood.
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness
8. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger.
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms.

I've been trying to write about her, but it's just too difficult. She's too vulnerable, too accusatory, and though I realize she may never read this, I still fear her turning against me. So I'll write about her boyfriend instead...although even this I do tentatively.

He's a 26 yo African-American man, appearing slightly older than his stated age with hair cut tight around the curves of his skull, wearing a black, ribbed, long-sleeved T-shirt over baggy jeans, and one small silver hoop earring on his right earlobe. I found him standing outside in the hallway of the emergency room after he had knocked on the door to the psychiatry office, saying that he was looking for a Dr. Du. He stood, shifting his weight from side to side with his hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans and reached out his right hand to shake mine. He made appropriate eye contact but shifted his gaze away from mine frequently as he spoke of the facts of his situation, as though my eyes were those very emotions that ought not be confronted at this moment of logistical urgency. His speech was polite but had a sense of urgency and his hands punctuated his sentences with masculine fairness . He spoke what I can only describe as the language of the "inner city," frequently ending his sentences with 'you know what I'm sayin?' As he went on, he spoke more and more rapidly, as though he was making his final plea to the jury. His thought process was linear, but he returned always to 'I just want her to get better,' and 'I just can't be with someone like that.' His thought content was predominated by her threats, her moodiness, her violence, her drinking, her lying, her insatiable need for attention, etc. His affect ranged from worried about her, to angry at her, to sad that it has been so hard. His eyes moistened as he heard my trite words, 'it must have been difficult.' I didn't ask him his mood, but I suspect he would have repeated, 'I just want her to get better, you know?' I could tell he had insight into the issues in his life and hers, but he hadn't heard the term "Borderline Personality," nor had he thought of her as fighting a difficult life-long "illness." To him, she was the firebrand, fragile-hearted, emotionally draining, but yet fascinatingly endearing love of his current life - and I can't deny the accuracy of his perception. He had good judgment to focus on his immediate purpose of finally curing her of her manipulative behavior that kept him holding her but hating her, by telling me anything and everything he could of the truth, knowing that she twists the truth and lies. But he was wrong to believe that by doing so and by being in a hospital, she would 'be cured' of her personality. And perhaps he was wrong to have stayed with her because she threatened to kill herself each time he tried to leave. But then again, perhaps he was really the one who saved her then and now.

In summary, this is a 26 year old man standing before me, his eyes moist with the tears of a trapped animal without a trap to blame. There was nothing that I could do but to feel his anguish and remember.

Windows

There is that phrase that eyes are the windows to one's soul. I open them to allow my thoughts to escape. I close them to contain myself and keep it all together. I take in the words on a page to allow my thoughts to blend with that of the author, so to not feel so alone. I expel words to permanently tack my thoughts down to stop their pestering. And when I cannot find the words, the pressure forces out teardrops to leave on the page. I look into the eyes of another to see what I want to see - that he understands.

It explains why I have difficulty keeping them closed to fall asleep at night. They keep snapping open to release the crowded thoughts within. I am relieved I have them to open and close as I please. I wonder sometimes whether they become weary from the traffic they must contain or reveal. They inevitably become worn and laced with fine wrinkles and creases as the years go by. The creases remind me of the thoughts that have trespassed through this little mind and the words that were transcribed.

Magic

I wonder if trips will ever stop feeling like this: so unbearably, unrealistically intense. It somehow feels even theatrical, with a distinct beginning, middle, and end that have always meant to be. The encapsulation of what transpired into the boundaries of space and time somehow relieves it from the chaos to which I’m accustomed, as the covers of a book relieves the words on the pages. And of course, I am left again with the sadness that nothing will ever happen again in just the way it did within this story. I have a hard time believing and not believing that it was all as magical to everyone as it was to me. I suppose if I have learned anything in life it’s that it is filled with unilateral magic.

There’s nothing like traveling just to see friends. I was passed this time from one to another, like a series of trust falls without ever touching the ground in between. I’m inevitably impressed by their capacity to take care of me and absorb me into their life for just a little while. The exercise has completed its task: I trust them more than ever now. It gives me the false illusion that San Francisco is filled with nothing but warmth, friendship and good times.

A certain phrase danced at the tip of my tongue over the past few days, and it was a movingly awkward line delivered by none other than Hugh Grant in the movie Notting Hill. After Julia Roberts had spent the night, woke up terrorized by the paparazzi, and stormed out screaming at him for ruining her career, he said quietly, in that Hugh Grant sort of way: "I on the other hand will always be glad that you came to stay for a while."

Classic unilateral magic…or so it seemed at the time.

Cows and wives

I read in an article in the NY Times today that in the Sindh Province of Pakistan, there is a saying that goes: "If your cow dies, that is a tragedy; if your wife dies, you can always get another." I have to admit that this made me feel a little more sorry for myself. Despite the cultural distance between upper Manhattan and the Middle East, somehow the meaning of the word "wife" to me became a bit heavier and flimsier. Will "wife" mean walking alongside my best friend for the rest of my life or being a vessel of procreating robust offspring? Does being chosen as "wife" mean that we are destined to fuse in spirit or that I am just the most attractive available specimen of the lot for now? As "wife," will I be just as unique and strong as I am when I am just myself, or will I become the generic, disposable, easily replaceable character in another man's play?

Of course, like all answers, this answer is somewhere in the middle. But somehow, this one is a bit more difficult for me to reconcile. To reconcile seems to entail being persistently disappointed that I have neither found the magical scintillating vision of love I have always pined for, nor attained the high state of wisdom to recognize that such a vision could never be realized in this tragic world of ours. I would be forever stuck in limbo between hoping and giving up. It is like the pain of not knowing whether there is a God or not and watching myself shift from one side to the other depending on which side is more convenient at the time.

So then perhaps the definition of "wife," like the belief in God, is simply again just a conscious choice: a choice that annoyingly cannot be made based on the outcome of where that choice might take me as I will never know that outcome until I have already chosen. Everyone has their opinion of course, and everyone will speculate about which is ultimately the right answer, but they are just as reliable as their debates on the existence of God. Whatever I choose, I risk being alone and disappointed. But I suppose the good news with a choice like this one is that I'll never risk being wrong - or right for that matter.

I've noticed I always like to end these posts with having come to a conclusion of sorts. I unfortunately have to break that tradition this time if I want to stay honest. I confess I'm still too afraid to make a decision on this point, fearing what it might mean for my fragile future happiness. So there it is, my first incomplete blog post - suggestions on the ending are welcome.

Heroes

I remember when I didn't have to tell myself it was unreasonable to be so excited that we were going to have my favorite flavor of ice cream, to be so disappointed that we couldn't play my favorite game after all, to be so sad that everyone would be leaving the party so soon, or to forget so quickly that the world was perfect/going to end just a moment ago. It was a time when things were so much more colorful, a time when really, anything - the best and the worst - was possible. In them I see all this: the child I once was, and the child I'm still trying to become.

The Girl

I went to the courthouse the other day for the first time in my life. I was shuffled in to a courtroom with two dozen pews quite full of people. I looked around the room of course to check out who else was in the miserable state of irony that I was in, having been charged with a ticket for riding my bike on the sidewalk two blocks down from my boyfriend's apartment.

They were mostly young men of color, except a girl sitting across the room who caught my eye. She wore a white dress with short sleeves, pretty plain actually. Her hair was black and neatly pinned in a pony tail and a strand of delicate pearls hung around her neck. She kept her head down so it was difficult to see her face. She appeared deeply emerged in the book she was reading, possibly too emerged for it to have been truly of genuine interest. She looked up once in a while to scan the faces around her and then for a moment she appeared at a loss of what to do with herself, before opening her book again to duck back into her camouflage of literary engagement.

A police officer announced a few names. A few of the men responded and walked up to the podium, took some pieces of paper and walked out of the courtroom. I looked back at the girl to see whether she would respond to things happening like normal people do. She was looking up alright, her book still held open by her thumb, the binding sitting snugly between her thighs. The others in the room went back to staring at their feet, quieting their children, and playing with the paper slips we were given to sign, but she continued staring straight ahead. The cop walked to the side of the room, but her gaze didn't budge. I couldn't stop staring at that point, not until I figured out what was captivating her.

Suddenly, her head dropped, breaking the spell, but something else fell onto her lap. She brushed her eyes with the back of her hand and I realized that of course, it was tears. Tears. Surrounded by benches full of anxious people fondling pieces of paper. She was lost in her tears. Tears that obviously had nothing to do with her petty crime and reason for being here or her silly book, tears that obviously could not be understood by anyone sitting in this room, tears that she is completely and utterly alone with for the indefinite time that we will all be stuck here. For what felt like several hours, I stared at her in pity.

And then, a man walked into the aisle beside her and broke my view. He was an older man, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts like most others in the room, not particularly attractive, with a small protruding belly. He reached out his hand, looked straight at her blotchy face, smeared with her hopeless tears, and smiling, introduced himself as if it was the most natural thing in the world to chat up the only person crying in a room full of people. She appeared shocked for only a split second after which she smiled back. He talked to her. She talked back. A few minutes went by and her tears have dried. They were chuckling now. The officer hushed the room to be quiet. She smiled at the man and returned to reading her book, not as engaged as she appeared before, but more convincingly so. He had saved her somehow.

Clinical Equipoise

We discussed the concept today. Definition of equipoise

The state in which there is no clear knowledge of the answer to a question. I find myself resting in this state for most of my life about many questions, like does God exist? Do I give dollar bills to street performers? Is it better to read the Times or a Pulitzer Prize winning novel?

A professor told us today that watchful waiting is often the wisest decision for these times. Wait for the next big randomized control trial to confirm the last, for a trial even bigger and well-designed than the ones before.

Then there are those moments when I finally do decide: Yes, I WILL give dollar bills (but not five's) to street performers and the homeless, but only when they seem to me at first glance as 'good' people; Yes, reading the Times IS better than reading a novel, but only on Fri, Sat, Sun when I get my Weekender on my doorstep; Yes, there IS a God!

I have to say these are moments worth celebrating, the endings of a dark yet wonderfully confused time full of possibilities. With each of these moments I feel a bit older, more chiseled and hardened. It's relieving to finally stand for something. Although it's hard to attribute these moments to randomized controlled trials at all, or even to personal experience. Perhaps they were the product of my impatience at being young and malleable, although I hope it was more magical than that.

More likely I decided when I was finally cornered by circumstances: when faced with street performers 3-4 times a day, when faced with the choice of reading material on every subway ride, when overhearing discussions about God and the lack thereof over beers and martinis one too many times. I like that feeling though, of only deciding when forced to. It's a bit like being shoved into the role of a leader not because I chose it, but because it chose me. Yes, to be chosen by my choices. In some ways that's the only way I would be convinced my choices were right. How else could I be justified in breaking clinical equipoise without randomized controlled trials?

One day I will miss the darkness of this state of questioning. It is, after all, the realm I was always drawn to: the frontiers of knowledge that the annoyingly bright headlights of science have not yet penetrated. But I suppose my choices, even after they're made, unlike science - or like science for that matter, sheds no additional light into these beautiful chasms at all. It's comforting to know that the darkness will always be there, and that all I will ever do is to paint my own stars within it.

The Heights

Yes, I live there now. A place called Washington Heights. It is what most people call the borderless area between about 145 and 190th streets on the west side of Manhattan - what I've started to call 'nosebleed' section of the city - because they're the parts so far north that some people cringe when they hear that you live there and immediately hope that you could eventually afford to move to some place more sensible like the upper west side or the lower east side. Here in 'the Heights' liquids of various smells and colors run in the grooves between the concrete blocks that piece together the sidewalks, so I step carefully. There are piragua carts and fruit stands selling pineapple and mangoes on sticks at many a street corner.
what is piragua
Even the Indian pharmacist who works at the drug store and the Chinese man who runs the take-out place speak a few phrases of Spanish out of necessity. Boys, girls, men, women, and elderly sit along the wall lining Riverside Drive and on the doorsteps of the apartment buildings or bodegas on sunny afternoons commenting on the people passing by, namely the women. The clothing cling brightly and tightly to their full and rounded bodies, behaving perfectly as they claim the streets beneath their stilletos and platforms with their confident swagger, featuring the tantalizing sway of their ever-so-distracting hips. They stare, I stare, everyone stops to stare. These pauses make up the natural syncopation in the passing of the days around here. The streets are always alive with chatter, occasional yelling, and the beats of bachata, reggaeton, salsa, or merengue blasting out of wide open apartment windows or sedans parked along the side of the street around which young and older men hover.

I am unfortunately still an outsider here. I give the occasional apprehensive smile in answer to 'oye, chica.' I wonder just how out of place I appear. I attempt to emulate the commanding strut that even the ten year old girl appears to possess and wonder if I could ever be successful at owning these streets like they do. I am humbled, no - outright intimidated by the connectedness the residents seem to have to the place, how well they know each street corner and lottery ticket vendor. I believe it may take a lifetime, or several, to build up that kind of bond. These days, I take joy in the smallest of victories, like finding out which subway exit to climb out of to place me at the optimal street corner, finding the absolute closest bodega to my apartment in the case of an emergency when I'd be out of toilet paper, and learning to tell from the sound of the cables which floor the elevator is on and whether it would be more prudent to take the stairs. I may never be a Dominicana, but I suppose I will enjoy the steep learning curve for now.

Bitten

Einstein, my hamster, bit me today. I was trying to get him to crawl into his exercise ball and he wasn't moving, so I grabbed him. He turned his neck around immediately upon contact and stuck his two front teeth into my index finger. I felt a surge of animalistic rage at being physically attacked. This was followed by a more civilized sense of guilt, hurt, and disappointment that my pet has turned against me. I'm sure I will feel this same sequence of emotions with my children one day.

In the future, I shall 'herd' him as prescribed here:
http://exoticpets.about.com/od/hamsters/f/hamsterbiting.htm

On Blogging

I always ask myself these days who I am writing to here. I ask because I write here so much more often than I have in my journals since the time I was thirteen. I check the counter on my blog compulsively, to see if he who I'm writing to has seen what I've left for him. I hope relentlessly that this may just be the day that he has decided to write back a 'new comment.'

If I could describe 'him,' I suppose he would be my perfect friend...that imaginary friend some of us may have had at one time. The one who always listened, understood, was thirsty to hear more, loved me not just despite but for my faults, etc, etc...

There is a filter that comes with writing here. I'm sure there is an unofficial bible of what is 'bloggable' and what isn't already posted on the web. Actually, http://www.tipjunkie.com/2008/05/blog-etiquette-or-blogtiquette.html.

It's a fascinating medium actually, something apparently so honest and raw, yet possibly deceivingly so. It is, after all, for my best friend whose opinion I treasure deeply. I want him to know the real me, yet I want so badly for him to keep loving me the way I imagine he does.

The Metro

One of my favorite activities here in NYC is to sit on the subway by a window and stare out at the passing stations, columns, flickers of light between the columns, people waiting with their hands in their pockets or on their iphones...I think of how many times this path in the ground has been taken, by how many forms of life, in how many situations and for how many purposes. I think of how many stories I pass by, how many dreams are being dreamt alongside the bright yellow paint lined gutters, how many songs are being heard through white budded strings. It is all too familiar: that alternating light and darkness streaked by the speed of time over the damp image of a man standing still at the side of the rails, looking in the direction of the train he awaits. It is a typical photograph, or scene from a movie. It had been archived into my library of emotion-soaked visions before, but it is now real, everyday. But what's more, I am now part of it.

Graduating

I walked down the stage, shook the swine-flu-hazard hands, and took hold of the cardboard-stiffened envelope bearing the sacred single sheet that declares me a doctor.

It's a paralyzing feeling: to have the most vivid memories behind me and the most blankest of slates ahead. For the intensity of what has trespassed here, I have alarmingly little to say about it. Perhaps it is something I'd prefer to say with a wink or a sly smile to he and she who was here, as though it is our little secret. Perhaps it is something I've been saying all along here on the page, and I am drained dry. Perhaps it is something that I'm afraid to lock down into a cliché, or exaggeration, or idealism. Perhaps it will just take time for the lack thereof it to settle in before I know what it ought to be called.

If someone asks me what this was all about, I would say 'searching.' I searched for success, purpose, heroes, faults, love, challenges, and friendship. Sometimes I found something, most times I just learned. Perhaps what I learned most was to be patient with searching, as I finally promised to myself that it will never be done.

If someone asks me how I feel, I would say 'lucky.' Lucky for the 'how are you doing?' at morning lecture, the 'we're meeting at Whiskey's at 10' on Friday nights, the 'talk to me' when I would first hold back, the 'I'm here if you need anything' when Dawn passed away.

I congratulate myself for stumbling upon the profession that will save lives, particularly my own. Like the boy next door, I've realized it's much more perfect for me than I had originally thought. It humbles my narcissism, redirects my selfishness, fortifies my wobbly self-worth, and focuses my fickle passion and purpose. Most of all, it surrounds me with the warm, steady hands of those who have chosen to give a little more than take from the world and each other.

Yes, I trust them with my fragile heart.

Inconsistency

Life is full of inconsistencies. People probably are as well, some more than others. Is the presence of inconsistencies simply 'immaturity?' Is the process of growing up to remove the inconsistencies? Are they detrimental to happiness? Do they only exist because of greed? Selfishness? Indecision? Do they prevent us from being loved wholly for who we are? Is it possible that an individual has too many of them to be loved by any one being?

I've lived over a quarter of a century and haven't managed to get rid of many of the inconsistencies. Maybe it's a sign I don't know who I am, or haven't decided who I want to be. It's like running a restaurant with an eclectic changing menu and not knowing to tell the guests whether to expect Burgers or Thai...although the Cheesecake Factory seems quite successful anyway.

The Dollhouse is a series about beautiful people who get programmed to be whatever a client wants them to be (sweet, sexy, smart, or kung-fu proficient). At baseline, however, the "dolls" are without any personality. They can be anyone, and yet are no one. Perhaps to be 'someone' requires the giving up of some colors on the palette, some totipotent potential. To be 'someone' requires not being someone else, to have a lack of strengths and talents that someone else might.

Things I'm NOT:
- a model
- an incredible singer like Taylor Swift
- good at beer pong
- able to have one-night stands without getting PTSD
- the pinnacle of logic
- Buddha
- a good loser at chess

There. I'm someone I think :-)

A Study

Abstract

A single-blinded taste test was performed between the two rival companies of tart yogurt: Pinkberry and Red Mango (not to be confused with the discarded/future names of companies Purple Grape, Green Kiwi, and Sweetfruit)

A total of two subjects were surveyed (n=2). Both popular flavors, "Original" and "Pomegranate" were compared. The subjects were asked to close their eyes. They were fed one spoonful of tart yogurt 3 seconds after another and then asked which they preferred "One" or "Two."

Results showed that one subject out of the two preferred Pinkberry to Red Mango, claiming that it was the more "tart" out of the two. This subject, however, has been knowing to utilize large amounts of balsamic vinegar and pepper on food items in the past and thus may have a skewed palate. The other subject showed no preference, although he did claim that the Pinkberry yogurt was "colder."

We conclude from our data that Pinkberry is clearly the more delicious and superior tart yogurt of the two leading brands. More studies are required to characterize the qualities of the numerous brands of tart yogurt in this rapidly expanding market.

Granted

To take things for granted:

I suppose it’s an adaptive trait. Our visual cortex has learned to stop noticing the things that don’t move in order to be able to pay attention to the things that do. It is what has allowed us to escape our predators, detect danger, discover new inventions, and realize when something precious has been stolen. If we were to notice everything that ever is, ever was, or ever will be, we may not really notice anything at all. It is against our instincts to appreciate that which has always been there for us: the bread at the grocery store, the kitchen light that turns on with the flick of the switch, the shelter and nourishment our parents provide whenever we return home for the holidays, the warmth of the naked arms waiting to embrace us each night. What must it take for us to challenge millions of years of evolution? Should we even challenge it?

To avoid being taken for granted:

also an adaptive trait. Our frontal cortex has learned to calculate the costs and benefits of our choices quite accurately. Action A costs x and benefits y. If the favor is not returned, we warn ourselves to abort the mission. It is what has allowed us to protect our resources, survive with the limited food and shelter we have, ensure that we are surrounded by those who are most likely to help us in times of hardship. It is against our instincts to continue to give when our gifts are not appreciated or eventually returned: kindness towards criminals, money for the drunkards, love for someone who does not love us in return. What must it take for us to continue giving through the warning signal? Should we even continue?

I believe we believe the answers are ‘yes.’

The most praised prophets of our world share these counter-evolutionary traits. That which most take for granted, they do not; that which most choose not to give, they do. But do we really aspire to be like them? Or are they simply the way we like our prophets, saviors, friends, parents, and significant others? Who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by these selfless individuals? They make the best companions to take advantage of. To really live out these traits, we would have to give up a few percentages of our chances for survival. Is that worth it? It is quite obvious to our brains that it is not. What could it bring us? What could be worth more than survival?

Gray

There’s an elderly man sitting at the end of my row on the plane. And an elderly woman, likely his wife, came by just now for a while and stood by him in the aisle. “You almost halfway done with that book?” he asked her. She nodded. He continued to sit with his arms crossed, she continued to stand with her hand resting on the back of his seat. “They don’t show movies on the plane anymore,” he said. She replied in a few words. He sat and she stood for a while longer. “How much should we turn the clock forward?” she asked. “Two hours, they said. We’ll be there by one.” More sitting, more standing. They exchanged a few more sentences. “Well, I’ll see you later,” she said. “OK,” he replied. She turned and walked back down the aisle. All this love and romance and turmoil…all to have someone stand by you on the plane when your hair is gray. It’s well worth it I think.

Hard and Soft

Ideals, reality, hope, and disappointment.

These are difficult things to balance. I really admire those who can do it well. They seem to be comfortable with the way the world really is, accept it for the sadness that it contains. But at the same time, they are somehow free to hope for the best of things that occur here. For themselves, they are able to uphold their ideals of who they want to be, and who they challenge their loved ones to be. And they are not too hardened to experience disappointment when their ideals aren’t met because they realize it is part of life as well. At the same time, they are never too disappointed to leave their ideals behind. It’s a delicate combination of warm and cold, hard and soft that make up these individuals.

I on the other hand go through the days feeling too hard, too soft, too warm, too cold – never quite just right.

World

"Let's just say I have a very rich internal world."

- Justin Benjamin Lantz, 2009

Bamboo

There is a small establishment next to our hotel called Papas y Burgers. It consists of a small house that opens up to a fenced off area shaded by a tin roof, populated by dark tables and chairs. They have napkin holders made of shaven bamboo trunks filled with brown recycled napkins that match the brown recycled toilet paper in the bathrooms. They provide chess and backgammon sets and a pile of National Geographic in Spanish. A skateboard and boogey board lean casually on the walls.

Three guys run this place and are reliably around for most of the day, all of the days. Two of them have English accents: one has his head shaved and the other wears aviator sunglasses. The third talks like an American, and is likely from the Bronx? LA? Chicago? I will have to ask...There is a Spanish-speaking girl that is often around, sitting at the tables sipping on beer, or walking in and out from behind the bar. Her skin is a dark caramel, toned by the weight of the waves. She wears a black tank top and short shorts with brightly colored palm tree and surf board patterns. She's the kind that has a tattoo.

They take the time here to brew a batch of tea and ice it to ensure that it is decaf the way I prefer it. I was excited to see that there is a newly installed bubble blowing machine tucked into the corner of the entrance now quietly injecting little glistening pearls into the sun-filled humid air. But my favorite part: the smooth, slow, chilling beats of what they call "Buddha Bar" that constantly pulse here off their iTunes playlist. It reminds me that it is still possible to find Zen, that Zen is waiting for me, for as long as I hover under this tin roof, my chin propped up on my elbows by the bamboo napkin holders.

Curious

We are in Costa Rica. The place seemed to be designed just for tourists: a very small piece of land in which you can drive to most places in less than 5 hours, where once you leave the beach, you find green mountains, keep going through the mountains and you'll find exotic rain forests with endangered species all around. No wasted space here.

We passed by many houses/huts in the mountains - the kind that seem to be common in tropical places. They lack thick walls, windows and chimneys - obsolete here. We passed one that had a large tent shielding large piles of lumbar and later a serious but calm looking man holding a machete over his shoulder, which got me wondering what these people did for a living. Did they all know their neighbors? If so, who did they know to be respectable? Who did they know to fear? Who did they avoid talking to? Sleeping with?

Stop Thinking

Bev: You treat me like a 5 year old. You're going to take over for my parents, aren't you?

TJ: Well, there will be some things that I'll do that's just like your parents, and there will be some things that you do that's just like my parents. But there will always be things that you'll do for me that my parents don't and things that I'll do for you that your parents don't...

*pause*

TJ: Hey...stop thinking what you're thinking.

Bev: Well, I wasn't but I am NOW.

ENFP

I was reminded today that I am an ENFP (Extroverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceiving - the ones way out in left field):

"To onlookers, the ENFP may seem directionless and without purpose, but ENFPs are actually quite consistent, in that they have a strong sense of values which they live with throughout their lives...They see meaning in everything, and are on a continuous quest to adapt their lives and values to achieve inner peace. They're constantly aware and somewhat fearful of losing touch with themselves.

ENFPs sometimes make serious errors in judgment. They have an amazing ability to intuitively perceive the truth about a person or situation, but when they apply judgment to their perception, they may jump to the wrong conclusions.

ENFPs who have not learned to follow through may have a difficult time remaining happy in marital relationships. Always seeing the possibilities of what could be, they may become bored with what actually is. The strong sense of values will keep many ENFPs dedicated to their relationships. However, ENFPs like a little excitement in their lives, and are best matched with individuals who are comfortable with change and new experiences."

***COMPATIBILITY: ENFPs are happiest in relationships with Tom Cruise.

***Famous ENFPs include anyone who has ever dated Tom Cruise.



...Any other ENFP's out there? (given the above however, I'd understand if you'd prefer not to show yourselves at this point)

The Interface

'The most interesting things tend to happen at the interface, between two elements, two surfaces, two forces, two states of being, two people...'

- Josh Ng (ca. high school)

Another Year

On the bus ride back now, and in the past few days since the last ride the earth has exploded into a lush new green. A year has passed again since the last. The same pounds were gained and lost. The same allergy medication put away and taken out again. The same clothes packed away and dug out from under the bed one more time. I tell myself that this year will be different, not really knowing what that might mean.

I do know that I am tired of and bored with my same thoughts, same awkward teenage feelings, same habits that refuse to commit to a purpose or religion, and same default reasoning to look out for miss number one. I’m tired of looking for a happiness conditional on so much perfection, tired of looking at my life like a Disney movie gone wrong. But what to replace these things with? So far, all I have to go on is to be better: kinder, more patient, more giving, more forgiving, more graceful. I write it here so that someone out there could hold me accountable for these things, so to not repeat the same year again.

Fortune Cookie

I'm sure the following can be found in the form of a fortune cookie somewhere in the world:

A doctor once told me that patients arrive at the hospital in a terrible situation: with an unknown diagnosis, and not getting better. And the goal of a doctor is to bring them out of that lower right corner of the punnett square: to either find out the diagnosis, or get them better, or preferably both.

It seems that the goal in life in general is the same: to either find out what you want, or be happy with what you have, but just avoid the lower right corner.

Ode to Joy

There are those of us who are content to allow our lives carry us in whichever direction, and we find joy in the places life takes us.

There are others who think long and hard about what it is we want and find joy in obtaining it at last after beating the odds.

Then there are those of us who can’t decide which of the two we are; and thus we let life carry us, and think long and hard about where its taken us, only to find that we can’t decide whether or not its given us joy at all, but for the sake of coming to some conclusion, convince ourselves that we can only find joy in what we have left behind or have not yet been taken.

Matter

I've heard that many things matter and many things don't. But I can't recall which was which...

the present, 10 years down the road
the big picture, the little things
that which is in front of you, that which is hidden beneath
one's word, one's actions
that which is right, that which feels right
the outcome, the intention
dignity, kindness
things that happen every day, things that don't happen every day
one's happiness, the happiness of others
that which is certain, that which you believe

Life's prix-fix menu...any recommendations?

Minds

Girl: What's on your mind love?

Boy: I saw this commercial today where someone in a spacesuit was using a cell phone to call home from outer space, and it made me wonder how the process of using a cell phone would work in outer space. Like would it be just like it is on earth? Or would there even be sound when the guy talks? Cuz doesn't that require air molecules and what-not? And if so, how would you even hear it when it rings in outer space? And then what about the structure of the cell phone itself? Like would some parts be messed up from the absence of gravity? And then there's the whole thing with signal. Would it be totally awesome all the time or what? But then you'd think that by the time we get to the point of even considering calling from outer space on cell phones we'd all be tele-porting anyways and wouldn't need silly black boxes we have to hold up to our ears to talk.
...
So what's on your mind?

Girl: You.

- Anonymous Contributer

Loneliness

A friend once told me 'there will always be some part of ourselves that will be alone.' (not too different from what my mother always told me). It gave me such relief to hear that - after so many years of searching for companionship for all the parts of me, realizing that actually alone is the natural state of some things. In fact, there may even be an alone quota that must be filled. Alone may be the notes of silence that separate the notes of music, without which music may never exist. Alone is golden.

The onion

The onion: a quite overly used metaphor to describe an individual. There is the outer layer of toughish skin. There is a deeper layer beneath we show a smaller audience. There is another beneath reserved for special occasions (such as a blog entry). Then another even lower that we hide from the blog. Finally, there is a layer that we hide from even ourselves.

It's funny these layers...the secrets they keep from each other, the judgments they make of each other, and the anger they have towards one another. But without such inter-layer conflicts, I suppose there wouldn't be layers at all, and we'd be, God forbid - shallow.

The sign

There is Fresca at the Fenway Shaw's once more! The economy must be on the rise...Rejoice!

Dance:

Yes, it is true. Sometimes there are more important things than dance.

For a while I believed that there couldn't be - what could take greater priority than that pure breath of my soul - but alas, I am finally ready to hold that breath for something even greater.

Nice

"Sometimes it's nice to have the best first because it's when your taste buds are the most active. Once you are full from eating dinner, dessert just doesn't pack the same punch...I think at 27 years old, the time for eating vegetables in order to eat some cake is over." - Andrew Shin, JD, MS, MPH

Time passing

The funny thing about time is that it is like a vacuum: always somehow filled up by...stuff.

I had a discussion once with someone about why we see rain/snow/anything drifting/falling from the sky as beautiful. We (or more like I) decided that it was because it made us take notice of the space between our eyes and the next thing we see - the space that we take for granted and forget is there most of the time.

I guess we also take notice of time by the stuff that fills it up - like the many hours of today for example, by my obsessive work on this blog...

The beginning...

Today I start a blog...yes, the sign of the continued deterioration of human relationships in an increasingly piecemeal world forcing us to reach out into cyberspace for companionship and reaffirmation of self-worth...

I thought it would be cool. Why not?

Monterrey Entries

Dust 2/14/09

Place 3/1/09

Place

“[People] are linked to that environment through three key psychological processes: attachment, familiarity, and identity. Place attachment…is a mutual caretaking bond between a person and a beloved place. Familiarity refers to the processes by which people develop detailed cognitive knowledge of their environs. Place identity is concerned with the extraction of a sense of self based on the places in which one passes one's life.” – Mindy Fullilove

After the episodes of traveling and the supposedly scientific paper writing about the topic, only now am I becoming cognoscente of how I come to know a place. I walked through el Parque Fundidora and afterwards along the canal Paseo de Santa Lucia to the downtown plaza one afternoon. The park is a large, flat stretch of land dotted with random structures of industry – rusty iron flumes penetrating the sky, bright yellow painted half-cars of trains, skeleton towers that once supported God-knows what at one time. At one edge of the park lies the sleeping giant – the Fundidora, or iron plant – dark and ominous with spikes jutting out of its unkempt mane. It breathes when I’m not looking. Its insides have been converted into a modern museum of the science and history of iron-making, a tribute to the industry that suckled and made fat the city. For the time being, it allows the human parasite to linger in its belly until the day it decides to awaken and do unto the petty squatters what it pleases. The poems and incantations of the long passed workers and servants give worship to the turbulence and majesty of its being: the heat of its insides, the fumes of its anger, the turbulence of its temper. It provided for them and toyed with their fragile corpses and hearts as all gods do.

It was the first time I was alone with the park and I decided that I needed to find a place within it that I would call my favorite to make it my own. I came upon a small clearing in which the cement pavement was replaced by a patchwork of square metal platforms. The patchwork was missing several pieces, the gaps revealing the vertical twigs of water spewing from rusty iron pipes running below: a chessboard made by a drunkard. On one edge of the patchwork sat an old metal piece of machinery whose function I realized was no longer worth understanding. It was now to be honored for its shape, its scars, its age, like an old woman in a black and white photograph. It matters not what it has gone through and suffices to say that it was ‘a lot.’ I chose this to be my favorite spot. It was to be mine and mine only to sit by and love as others walked by, once in a while stopping to marvel at its curious constitution. I suppose this is love: we decide that one is to be our favorite and stay by him, as the rest of the world strolls by in occasional admiration.

There were several more things I made my own that night – the chocolate and caramel filled churros from the small shop by the canal that consistently delivers the same crispy, gooey, sweet surprise; the bridge shaped like a rotary highway that allows you to descend to the side you seek only once you’ve followed its circumference; the sugar-sprinkled mini empanadas wrapped in clear plastic that inhabit the small bakery in the alleyway behind the flashy duplex mall; the mariachi band singing on a boat forever anchored to the bank of the canal being paid by whom to do so, I will never know; the aging man from Argentina guarding his telescope with a sign saying “Venus - free” showing passers-by his pet planet to whom we all feel obligated to give a few coins; and the lovers embracing and kissing proudly under the many milky pools of lamp light. I walked and sat until I was satisfied that I had collected enough belongings in this place. Yes, I can say I know Monterrey – or my little bite of it – for now and for eternity. Yes, these things now belong to me and in exchange, my sentiments, my tears, and a small serving of my heart now belong to it.

But I was wrong about knowing Monterrey. I didn’t then – not the Monterrey that I would come to remember.

In these foreign places where I resort to the sound of P. Diddy to remind me of who I am, I find myself even more sensitive to the stages of friendship: its growth and its expiration – stages that change rapidly and unpredictably with each passing day. I spend my hours here awaiting her silence that tears apart our fragile conversation, the drowning of my mind by an exclamation of undecipherable sounds containing the secrets he has finally decided to share with me that I will never know, the eventual loss of her gaze first intermittently and then forever as I spew out all the thoughts I know how to say, hoping that one of them would capture her interest, and finally his smile insufficient to cover the annoyance once he realizes that it just isn’t worth trying anymore. But today it occurred to me that this disappointment is all too familiar to be only due to my being here. This feeling of throwing darts at the hearts around me, hoping that one would stick, hoping that one would stay and accompany mine – it’s been my companion all along.

And the moment I had decided that I actually needed my inevitable solitude to grow complete and wise, one stuck – after just one throw, just one word, or perhaps even before then. And I recognized in that moment that this too was a familiar feeling. I have made a friend – in the way that I had always made a friend. It did not matter that I spoke in wrong tenses, needed him to explain his jokes, or was raised where there were never palm trees. It never mattered. And it will always be a mystery why we were chosen to have found each other.

It would remain a mystery why I was assigned to Maricela: 44 yo, with a twin sister, and >4 sets of twins on her own, making a total of 10? 14? 16 children? No one knew exactly at first because she could only stutter “ba ba” when she first arrived. The right side of her face remains drooping like a Dali painting, but she is now able to toss out words one by one like ping-pong balls: a speech resembling that of a mentally disabled child, but coincidentally the kind that I can understand best. Each day, she tells me the same simple things again and again, also just like a child and also so perfectly adjusted to my needs like a good teacher would have chosen to do. She tells me her face fell and her tongue became tied when she was making tortillas the way she does every day for her children, she tells me her babies are crying at home because they think she is going to die, she tells me her strength is improving but her face continues to droop, she tells me her husband is attempting to work enough days to earn the money for the last study she needs (an MRI arteriograph), she tells me she worries that her household is becoming unkempt and that she misses cleaning it, she tells me to take care and be well in my future.

My final night here I spent with my freshly made friends and their long-time friends in a Ranch in the mountains where many people owned rustic homes. I expected the ranches in the movies, but there were no wide-open fields, horses, or cowboys. There was a medium sized empty house and a mildly unkempt backyard that terminated with shrubbery overflowing a wire mesh fence. Under a large tree, surrounded by sparse bags of chips, coolers overwhelmed with ice and canned beer, packs of tortillas and bags of cheese, and of course the now all too familiar sound of Mexican music, there sat the relievingly familiar faces and shapes in the bendable breakable plastic chairs. This was to be the place where we would sit and drink and dance and laugh until the sun set and the night revealed the stars. In the air there were mosquitoes, chatter, and the strong regular beats of reggaeton. Inside, my heart gushed with the sparse memories of the few days in a life of many we have shared. I heard on replay the conversations we have had and the ones we will never have. I took in the feeling of being by each one of them: sometimes the feeling that there is nothing left to exchange but our giggles and head-bobs to the music, sometimes the feeling of satisfaction and camaraderie, and rarely, the feeling of severe insufficiency to ever exchange all that could be.

I like the music!
It was great meeting you!
I think you’re really nice!
Thank you for everything!
You should come to the US!

We parted like we always have with a touch/kiss on the cheek and transient hug – far too silent for the gushing of my heart.

This was to be the Monterrey that I will remember. Just like the China I remember, the Indonesia I remember, the Korea I remember, the Maine…the Troy…the Boston…the New York…

I soothe myself to sleep with the promise that I will slowly exchange all that needs to be exchanged through the pieces of text in cyberspace over time, all the while knowing that it will only be the need that will dwindle rather than the exchanges be fulfilled. But this is what I have signed up for, knowing that this happens every time, knowing that I have always been so greedy for closeness, knowing that I will always have to let go of those words never spoken and the potential I work so hard to build, knowing that I will always leave again. It’s a masochistic habit, this traveling. Maybe one day I will stop tormenting my own heart, trying to teach myself the lesson of forgetting that I know I will never learn. Maybe one day – but not yet.

Dust

For days I’ve been trying to identify the substance that I inhale here from the gusts of wind, that upon contact dries up the back of my palate. It is tasteless, colorless, and ever-pervasive in these parts. It makes me want to escape it by crawling into my windowless, vent-less dorm room with fluorescent buzzing lights. As we rode out of the city and into the arid lands today, I opened the window of the taxi cab that smelled of exhaust, only to find myself suffocated with more of the stuff from the wind. I realized then, that of course – it is dust.

Like most places, there are two kinds of people in the hospital here: the doctors and the patients. But I have yet seen a place where the two differed so much. I have yet to see as good looking a group of young people as the medical students and doctors here: the young girls with their hair pulled back, makeup neatly lining their lips, clothes formal but tight-fitting and flattering; the young men with their hair slicked, dark eyes and intense eyebrows.

The patients, on the other hand, blend in with each other as though they are of a slightly different skin-tone altogether. They are browned by the dust. They come with their various colored blankets and small bags of belongings that somehow all appear brown in the distance. They come with young and old attached to them and it’s often difficult to tell who is the sick one. Their skin is grooved like dried mud, and they pile together along the walls, against the pillars, and overflow to the outside sidewalks and curbs like the inevitable and relentless brown that stains a corner, unable to be reached by the dull tools and the strained cleaning schedule available to the hospital’s caretakers. The area of the stain waxes and wanes but it is always present. People are always waiting. It’s as though the caretakers have given up and decided to continue sweeping only the areas that is most convenient, leaving the grooves to continue browning.

The patients remain just as different, just as brown once moved onto the hospital floor. Some still have hands and feet caked with dirt, only rubbed off along with gel used for the echocardiogram that marked a spot finally deserving to be hastily wiped with toilet paper. There is Martin, the 68 or so old man who has curly gray hair and particularly dark skin, lying patiently with a distorted right arm now in the shape of a banana after some accident long gone in the past. He is aphasic now, after a stroke, but smiles when I tell the other medical student in broken Spanish about how I warn my younger sister not to choose medicine if she can be happy doing anything else. There is Miguel who is only 23, and near possibly the end of his life with AIDS and presumed toxoplasmosis encroaching on his brainstem, making him appear cross-eyed and forcing his hand to dance its way to his nose when he is asked to touch it. A woman sits by him most of the time, presumably his mother. She feeds him and a matter-of-factly instructs him to follow God’s Words as she points to the cross on his chest. Finally, there is Juan, someone’s name I don’t hear called often. He is 60 but appears the size of an 8 year old child since most of his flesh is wasted away and his right leg has been shortened by an amputation. He is strapped to the bed with various make-shift restraints created from sheets and torn cloth. His eyes wander freely about the room as he is in a state of coma, and his voice is only heard as the spasms of wheezes and coughs that produce bursts of projectile sputum from his tracheostomy, landing as far as the bed across the room.

Perhaps the only items that penetrate the brownness are their eyes – framed by wrinkles, even in the young. They remain bright and flickering, grateful and content. They are eyes that have learned not to be surprised by disappointment, eyes that have seen what things can happen in life, eyes that now patiently accept the random and meager rationing of God’s gifts. They do not disapprove of the professor’s daily request to tap their fingers together to demonstrate their perhaps permanently disabled coordination, nor of being fully exposed amidst the crowd of doctors for the changing of the fluid-stained and odorous sheets beneath them. It’s as though their spirits have already become detached from their bodies and their physical frames are but the beaten vessels that shield them from the harsh sun and dust. They have transcended to a place I’ve only known through the writing of philosophers. I am envious of their freedom.

There are also two kinds of prices here – probably for the two kinds of people. There’s the two-hour bus ride to the outskirts of the mountains for 8 pesos (50 cents), and there’s the bottle of Herbal Essence for 100 pesos (8 dollars). It makes me imagine the two worlds that these two kinds of people might traverse in, the two universes of goods and culture, perhaps never needing to interface each other except at the hospital – but even there, we are divided by spaces we occupy – between beds or on them, gliding through the center of the hallway or clinging to the walls.

Today there was a man who was in a coma from Guillam Barre syndrome. Alongside him was a medical student, squeezing the balloon “ambu” bag every few seconds into a tube that fed into his lungs, supposedly keeping him alive. Another student came by and took over, but not until the next changing of the guards did I realize that there was no machine on its way – this was the way things were supposed to be. I offered to help for half an hour, both appalled by the use of manual labor in such a hasty, risky way, and empathetic towards the dire conditions it must mean we are all in. So I gloved and took over the bag, warmed by the hands of the medical students before me. I was a personal ventilator. If I stopped or malfunctioned, he would slowly drift away.

I tried to talk to Martin who was in the bed across the room. His dense mutism has melted a bit into a grumbling and I felt proud of him. I asked if he could read the sign on the wall and he walked up and read part of the first word – the name of the patient who I was keeping alive for the moment. I told him he was improving and he nodded. I asked him what had happened to his arm, and he grumbled back gesturing some object falling from the sky. For a moment, he looked longingly at his banana arm but then quickly resumed his usual content nature, shaking his head and smiling as if to say “tis is life.” I chuckled at the situation, realizing for a moment I was trying to understand a man whose language I barely spoke who is aphasic and just learning how to grumble again. But then the others in the room were catatonic and comatose and strangely we were the two that had the most to say. Several times, I looked down at the patient I was ventilating and wondered whether he was still alive. Once I even checked his pulse just to be sure, but quickly resumed bagging, fearing that he would expire without the next puff. This may have been the biggest role I played in a patient’s life for a while.

Most of my friends are other exchange students here from other countries. It makes it difficult to say that I know what it means to be Mexican. It’s much harder to write this time around. I believe it’s because I’m not so lonely. I find that the more I know about people, the less I have to write about them – they become too real for words. Maybe my writing is only limited to simple things – things I can paint with my dullish fingers. Perhaps I’m just scared that I won’t get it quite right as there are so many more mistakes to be made.

My only conclusion had been that Mexicans are very kind. I told a taxi driver this and he responded ever so wisely, ‘there are good people and bad people everywhere.’ I have been told this in many places of the world and it is a lesson I should have known by now: that culture and place runs only so deep, and underneath, people are really all the same everywhere. There are ones who give and ones who cheat, ones who worship the truth and ones who lie when it’s more convenient. It’s funny that I think I am writing to capture the flavor of different parts of the world, when in the end, below different colors of candy coating, it is all just the taste of humanity.

So far I don’t know what else to make of this place. I have shared the few thoughts I have. But I feel comfortable with this. I have learned from a friend recently that not everything makes sense at every moment, although it all may in time.