Another year, another one bites the dust

I'm drifting though the embers of my collapsing relationship.

He'd say it went out with a bang, an argument so explosive as to blunt the memory of the happiness and fun that has passed before.

I'm not so sure. I think it's been burning away for some time, and this last week has stoked the flames just enough to burn to the ground.

Maturity or cynicism?

I'm not sure precisely what event reminded me that I had a blog. Much as I had forgotten I had ever written a blog, I had certainly forgotten the content. As I look back on the sleep deprived ramblings of my final year as a student, two thought struggle for supremacy:
1- What was so devastating in my life that justified such puerile outbursts.
2- What an eloquent motherfucker

Well I'm now nearly a year and a half further on. No longer the most junior of Doctors, and no longer so inclined to waste my time in flights of self-pity. Or at least so I'd like to think. So what's changed in my life? Whilst I wish I could say with any degree of confidence that advancing age had heralded increased wisdom, at least I can confirm my priorities in life have changed. New found values ..... is that a sign of maturity or just increasing cynicism?

I look back in astonishment that I ever let my happiness be so dependent on those around me. It surprises me that my relationships with friends were ever so strong that a fluctuation could affect me so deeply. Friendships are volatile, they wax and wane; tellingly, most of those that hurt me the most are still my "friends". I wonder how it took so long for the realistaion to dawn that friends are not the rocks you build your life upon - just a ruthlessly practical mechanism to make life more comfortable at that moment. Why nurture the illusion that those who value you for your wit and enthusiasm will remain as enthralled by the real us, the vulnerable one they may never have seen. I no longer feel hurt when those around me melt away - when you have no expectations of a person you remove their ability to affect you. The gradual detatchment from the people around me has brough anonymity, and with it a degree of freedom. But then as I write these words I wonder if perhaps my new found values are just cynicism masquerading as maturity. Perhaps on an academic level I can feel superior in my enlightenment, but part of me remains wistful at the loss of faith in the depths of my relationships, however illusory that may be.

apathy

Well, it's been nigh on six months since my last blog entry. So what's my excuse? To be honest, I just don't have the time to be as rampantly self indulgent any more. It's amazing how time consuming angst-ridden flights of winging can be. I started work as a junior doctor in August and the time has just flown since then. I was a fairly disinterested medical student. I was never one of those students who experienced such burning desire to be a doctor. Anything but. At my school, clever girls with no strong calling in life went on to well paid careers in medicine or law, and my already sloth-like tendencies meant that a degree without essays looked incredibly attractive. So you could say I did medicine for all the wrong reasons.

Medicine is not an arena for the apathetic. The responsibility and influence are huge, and there are few careers with the potential to wreak such damage on people's lives. I'm sure it is irresponsible, to say the least, to take on such a role, without putting your entire energy and attention into it. That's what the party line is anyway, but then I went into medicine purely for the prestige and the money.

My father taught me ....

When I was going through a terrible period in my life, feeling betrayed by the person who was supposed to love me more than any other, one of my dearest friends sent me a card with words of comfort and empathy. I cherish this card, not just for the love contained within, but for the quote on the front. It features a black and white thoughtful Al Pacino from "The Godfather", and the quote:

"My father taught me many things: keep your friends close but your enemies closer"

I find these words rushing into my head unbidden many times in the past few days. Maybe my thoughts at the rest of the time could be similarly paraphrased:

Keep your friends close, but your former friends closer.

It has become brutally apparent to me in the last few weeks that I've never been shit on as badly in my life by anyone, as I have been by my friends.

Fun and games

When the going gets tough, the tought get going. What do I do? Sit in a cafe frequented by students trying to be cool (and turkish gangsters), smoke shisha till I feel sick, drink enough arabic tea to float the Titanic, and rant for the best part of 2 hours. Don't you just love my pithy response to life's ups and downs. I quite like to throw things too. But not in a cafe full of Turkish gangsters ....

Secrets

I've just been inspired by a blog I stumbled on, which you can send a postcard to with your secrets on. Not sure why, maybe its supposed to be liberating, but here goes:
I download music off Kazaa, play copied games purchased from scary men with gold chains at a market with corrugated steel walls, and watch DVDs recorded with a video camera at the cinema (who the hell makes these DVDS? I mean have you ever sat down to watch a film and realised the person next to you has a tripod and camcorder??).
I borrow books from the library and don't return them for years until they have a fine amnesty.
Once I told my friend she looked great in an outfit she bought for a night out that really made her look fat just because I wanted to look better than her.
I used to read my ex-boyfriend's email.
I stole my friend's care bear when we were little.
I made up some of the results for my last research project because I coudn't be bothered chasing up the questionnaires. . . . . .

How the hell do these people fit their secrets on one postcard? I'm barely getting started .......

Priorities

Even after so many years I have not ceased to be amazed at the ability of the internet to take you to some random truths when you have been in search of something altogether different. Whilst reading a site devoted to cancer sufferers and survivors I came across the legend "re-evaluating priorities may result in an enhanced outlook on life ....". As I sat, indolent as ever, in the vanishing rays of sunlight these words came unbidden into my mind. I suppose your life experiences can be explained on account of your priorities. Today has been even more directionless than many of late, no mean feat. Whilst there are undeniably many physical paths I should be taking, there are also personal matters that I should still turn my attention to.

I have not spoken to my two closest friends for a week now, however instead of righting this situation, I have instead been increasingly brooding on the dawning realisation that one ceased to be that cliched "true" friend some time ago. As for the other, apathy grips me and in spite of the stabs of regret, as evidenced in my previous post, I find that I no longer have the inclination to chase our fleeting friendship.

In my arrogance, I pride myself on being unaffected by the potential men that come in and out of my life. In truth, there are much fewer than that pharse would imply. Yet one has uncharacteristically held my interest for much longer, despite any behaviour on his part, and I am at a loss to explain why.

And so, instead of analysing my own feelings about these situations, and perhaps sorting them out, in whichever direction that may be, I have sat in the weak sunlight and read Harry Potter. All day. Cover to cover. My over-riding thought, the one that penetrates through all others? Roll on book seven.

Unpleasant realisation

Have you ever been sublimely convinced you're over something, then been proverbally knocked for six when you discover that there's a tiny part of you (teeny, tiny, miniscule part) that is maybe still a little bit raw about it? "Not I", said with derisory scoff. Well, if the past has lost all power to haunt me, why did I feel an electric surge of excitement when I saw his number flash up on my mobile. Not happiness .... just anticipation. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

For whom the bell tolls

How do you make a friend? Is there one big event that throws you together and kick starts the friendship, or is it a more gradual emergence, a slow development of shared respect and laughter, whispered secrets and knowing glances, ridiculous rituals and frankly gluttonous eating habits. How do you lose a friend? Is it with a bang, a dramatic explosion making the previously strong friendship rapidly unviable. Maybe just as the friendship grew from an initial murmur of air growing into a strengthening breeze, it can slip away in an equally intangible fashion. The death knoll sounds as one of you becomes increasingly circumspect about events you would once have rushed to share with the other. An ever-pervading coolness exists where once there would have been warmth and genuine closeness. Then the slow realisation that the friend you pine for, and remember with such bitter-sweet nostalgia no longer exists and the person you see before you no longer has capacity to become that remembered ally. But then consider the theory of relativity (although no doubt Einstein would be disgusted to find his theory bastardised for such angsty purposes) has the friendship changed because you now look on from a different perspective. Perhaps it is a change in you yourself that has led to this slow erosion of the foundations of your friendship. But if this is the case then how did you change? Was it a decision you made, or a change in behaviour you consciously initiated? Or was it the inescapable changes that time and experience impose upon our character that are so hard to identify and analyse. Whatever the reason, despite repeated heartfelt efforts to the contrary, how ever much I try and grab the dissipating wisps of our love and friendship, I know that they are beyond my efforts to save, and it makes me sad. I wish I knew what to do. Any answers gratefully received.

Dante's Inferno (4th level)

The time is ripe for me to become re-addicted to blogging. Finals are over, I'm back at home, blissfully free of any demands on my time. But then, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the forbidden fruit is sweetest, and now that I'm free to while away my time on any undeserving pastime I choose, the appeal of wasting hours on the phone, sleeping, and googling random personality quizzes has faded. Although at least now I know that I'm destined to spend the afterlife on the 4th level of Hell in Dante's Inferno. Looking back on the few entries in my blog thus far I am tempted to continue in the same vein, although the sad reality is that my quasi-philisophocal reflections on my life are just an indulgently rambling expression of thoughts everyone probably experiences. But then everybody else is doing it so might as well join in (and no, I wouldn't jump off the cliff, but then I am scared of heights). Perhaps I should head my page with a disclaimer about the mostly incoherent and consistently self-absorbed jabberings to follow.

Hallelujah

"All I ever learned from love, is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you"

One of my favourite song lyrics ever, taken from Hallelujah, originally by the great Canadian poet-cum-singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, but covered by a multitude of other artists. I can't help but reflect on how well that line seems to summarise my relationships. I marvel at the ability of others to come away from faded loves, waxing lyrical on its redemptive properties. Being in love has only refined my ability to hurt someone in order to buffer myself from being hurt. Which I suppose really does make it a cold and a broken hallelujah.

Routine

I tend to go to bed late most nights, 2 or 3 am. My nightly routine involves piling the boudoir-esque pile of pillows into various precarious arrangements. I place my phone underneath the tower of pillows and close the blinds to create a dark environment condusive to satisfying slumber. Perhaps three minutes later I get out of bed and open the blinds, filled with romantic notions of allowing the moonlight to seep through. I get back into a bed bathed in the dirty yellow light of the hospital complex I live in. Decide I can't be bothered to get out of bed again. I drink my tea, conveniently located at the side of the bed, and invariably stone cold. I stare at the ceiling, and wonder if the ever-increasing crack is indicative of some serious underlying structural damage, and would I get special consideration for finals if the ceiling were to fall in. I listen to smooth relaxing music to slow the treadmill in my mind, gradually drifting off. Until of course I am rudely brought back to consciousness by the obscure trance remixes of Scottish folk music churned out by the shuffle feature of Windows Media Player (how does that work anyway? I can listen to music for pleasant hours during the day, yet it is only in the twilight hours my hard drive decides to regurgitate German hardcore house music. How did it even get on my computer in the first place? The moral of the story, don't mindlessly copy music from your friends' computers.) I turn off the music, providing my own soundtrack of particularly imaginative expletives. The cycle complete I think about the many things I need to achieve tomorrow, and promptly fall into a coma-sleep.

Well that's what usually happens. I've been having trouble sleeping lately. There's nothing so frustrating as insomnia brought on by wallowing in self-pity, triggered by rampant self-indulgence, a consequence of wanton procrastination, possibly magnified by the recent full moon.

I'm not a morning person. I grudgingly wake at 8 am when the alarm clock briefly sounds before I hit the snooze button for another delicious nine minutes of uninterrupted bliss. It's klaxon-like tones blare again and I viciously strike it, my dyspraxic hand randomly pressing buttons. Eighteen minutes gone. It hisses at me once again time and I slap it down, challenging it to dare defy me again. After all, who's in charge here? I can go on for hours this way.

A variable amount of time later (usually when one of my more conscious flatmates have threatened me with physical violence if I don't get up)I manage to swing my feet out from the comforting shelter of my quilt and onto the floor. As I kick over the stagnating remnants of yesterday's tea I am generally groggy, disoriented, bleary-eyed, and unprepared for sunshine. For the sake of variety I've lately been spicing the morning with a double dose of self-pity as I skillfully avoid the mirror.


However late I am for that morning's commitments, I still end up waffing about my room. Despite my mostly ridiculous good fortune in life, of late I've still managed to feel a small lingering hang-over of bitterness and resentment at the nocturnally identified perceived inequities in my life. Disgusting isn't it? I despise that behaviour in other people, and as with addiction, isn't recognising you have a problem the first step towards change. Well another one of my many, many character flaws, as identified by many, is wilful impatience, so I think I'll just skip to the conclusion of that process, and pull myself together. I will regain some sense of perspective and in the words of every Aunty-ji, "it could be worse".

Trust

Trust. Such a strong word with so many associations. As my thoughts return to this basic tenet of so many of my relationships I find myself meditating on the nature of trust.

Why? Trust must be earned, that much is undeniable. People speak of blind trust, indeed the definition of truth includes "to have confidence or faith in", but how can trust without reason have any value. Faith can be blind, but then is it possible to have true faith in anybody but God? I do not question my trust in God, only that I place in the people around me. Yet again my belief in the principle that you cannot trust anyone grows ever stronger. Why do we trust? The relief in unloading the emotional burdens of your life is incredible cathartic, providing an outlet for the tortuous workings of your inner mind. Maybe I have placed my trust in people as a way of bringing us together, craving the instant bond created by a shared secret. Perhaps I have wanted to show the object of my trust that my love for them makes me confident I can allow them to see beyond the surface and yet be assured of their love and support.

People say we must trust others? Why? Is it only through trust, however misplaced, that we can demonstrate that understanding, caring and concern so fundamental to our most heart-felt relationships? Why must trust be the glue of relationships?

It is undeniable that by giving of yourself, you make yourself vulnerable. The practice of Voodoo includes the concept that with an artifact of a person's body, another can take control of them; in giving a piece of your psyche to someone else do you not equally lay yourself at their mercy? By laying your trust in someone, making them privy to your weaknesses you ease the way to be hurt by them later. I have trusted people, I have laid my faith in them, in their integrity, and always with hope. The relief has been instant; more insidious has been the regret, that once again I have been weak enough to feel the necessity to place my trust in someone. Perhaps that person will not break my confidence, but even so, in giving of myself I can't help but feel I have also lessened myself.