Physician, heal thyself.

“At some point everyone realizes that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that like it or not, we are who we are; that despite the infinite abundance in the universe, nothing good can come to us except by working that little plot of land that we are given to farm.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love Stinks (Yeah, Yeah)

I've been thinking about love a lot lately. Unfortunately this doesn't happen unless it's 3:00 am on a work night, essentially ruining the quiet moments that my brain so desperately needs.

My conclusion? I don't get it. At all.


I can't understand why the gut-punch feeling of a broken heart creeps up and, well, punches me in the stomach when I'm folding clothes. Or why other times I just want to giggle and listen to sappy songs and think about the big, bright world and all of the love waiting in it.

Then there's the cliched question asked in power ballads and rom-com plots a million times over; is love enough? Why are such intense emotions experienced between two people compartmentalized and felt so differently? Pragmatism and reality are just too damned sad sometimes.

I see my patients and can't help but notice the way illness affects their relationships; how roses-and-sunshine romance has turned in to wiping drool off of a chin. Never mind a passionate kiss under the Eiffel Tower, I want the kind of love where I know that I'll have help getting a sponge bath one day. The tenderly mundane acts of affection are what make me believe in love. Medicine, if nothing else, keeps me humble.

It's hard to wrap my head around why I have to feel these things and where love (of all kinds) has gotten me. I'm almost 27 years old, still in school, unmarried, living off my parents with several years of training left ahead. It might not be the life I pictured for myself 10 years ago, but it's mine and I chose this route even though it occasionally sucks. I can still cry with patients, get googly-eyed over a song and I 100% believe in the power of a good hug. I am pretty sure that wearing my heart on my sleeve (a flaw to some) is going to work for me in the end, but we'll have to see how and where.

Until then, I need some sleep.

Ode to My Dudes

This post is in appreciation of every quality male friend that I am lucky enough to have in my life. You all have spoiled me rotten with your example of what it's like to be good men in a sea of douchebags. Flaws included, you are high-class people.

Your Momma Gnome loves you all.

NOTE: The above photo is not nearly all-encompassing of the dudes referred to in this musing.