Remember the wandering soul

It’s been tough stretch. The department is getting increasingly unbearably busy. The waits are long and the front line staff are all overwhelmed and exhausted. Morale is extremely low. A few of our docs are down (one injured, a few are off due to COVID), and many have been tasked to pick up extra shifts and have less off days.

So today, I was off after working a stretch of shifts. It was a welcomed addition. Or it should have been.

But instead I was restless all day. Irritated. Unsettled. Borderline annoyed.

At nothing in particular. My mood was just flat, and sour. Even when the weather was seemingly beautiful. I wanted nothing to do with it. I stayed inside all day, only occasionally staring out at the sun through my semi darkening blinds.

I just became irritable at small things. It’s like that when I was at work. But when I’m off, I have no excuse. My short mood must have carried over to my off days.

Then gradually, over the course of my evening (undoubtedly helped by seeing a facebook friend post some travel photos and by rewatching an old Jason Bourne movie with scenes of Eastern Europe…), I started to remember that at times like these, sometimes what digs me out of my flatness, my restlessness, would be an inspiration and perhaps a desire to go somewhere. To wander. To explore. To be inspired by new surroundings. The possibilities of a new destination always seems to bring an once of excitement and hope.

I have forgotten, that I miss travelling. Sometimes, when you don’t do something for a while, you forget how it can make you feel, even simply thinking about it.

For two years, with COVID, the prospect of travelling was non-existent. I’ve never been a fan of tourist-destination hopping. I prefer to drop into a destination, perhaps ANY destination, and just wander, to see nothing in particular, but just, be somewhere. Soak up the scene, let myself sense something I wasn’t so used to. Let new thoughts enter my mind. New imagery to my soul.

And it’s not like all those possibilities are rushing back. Not yet. (Although for many others in the world, it seemed that they have already accepted the risk of travel and picked up their bags and went.) For me, the implications are still far too heavy (work obligations, family well being) for me to feel freed of those transmission concerns and to simply fly off at the first destination that pops into my head.

But hopefully, in the not too distance future, I will be freed and capable to do that again.

But this reminded me, that I like to wander. That is my nature. That is what makes me feel alive. Part of the beauty of my job (to balance out with all the negativeness of it), is at least the flexibility to travel. In fact, for the longest time, I didn’t want any of those fixed obligations that would make me feel tied down (such as having to look after a detached home, or even a dog…). Living the life or an ER doc, doing shift work with the occasional gaps off, living in a condo with a concierge that I feel somewhat carefree to leave behind...  to some extend I’m living the perfect life for a wandering soul.

And that made me wonder.

Do I really want to give that up?

Yes, I have given a lot of thought of leaving my work, or at least to start contemplating viable exit strategies in my near future. The stress of the job. The hectic pace. The impact on my mind and body. Most days, it simply wasn’t enjoyable anymore to even THINK about work. If I didn’t need the income, I would have probably left. Recently, my department head had asked me to consider taking on my administrative duties, and maybe even if I wanted to take over from her spot. I had seriously been considering it as a way to off load some clinical hours, at the risk of losing some of my work flexibility that I so enjoyed.

But perhaps, if I once again allow myself to indulge in the perks of my line of work, I would be more ready to accept its shortcomings, and maybe even find it in me to continue to devote myself in it. So I could be as best as I could be at my work, and allowing myself to be as best as I could be outside of it.

Let me not forget about the dream of what makes me feel alive, simply because I’ve spent too much time stressing about the work that has me feel so much less so.

It’s not over. But it is. (Well it’s really not).

I haven’t written in a long long time. Not since some of my latest rants on the overall situation and approach our early days of the covid years. (Many of which, sadly, have continued to ring true as the pandemic drags its heels into the third year and counting. But by this point, what is the point of counting..?).

Indeed, we have arrived at the critical junction of what I felt long ago that we would eventually have to face. However, the correct path forward, from an ethical and societal and economical and sustainable point of view, is still largely debated and unclear, as it shall remain so.

When a topic is this large, one would be naive to expect that a simple, elegant, mutually agreed solution is ever gong to exist.

But isn’t that part of the game plan after all. Halt and reassess and aggressively develop protections and therapies when the illness was at its deadliest peak, to buy time for nature to hopefully run its course to bring the illness down to a more “tolerant” (still highly debated) level, and then eventually allow life to carry on as much as they can with some slight modifications of our new world with our new viral friend.

I am not here to debate our current covid policies or lack thereof. There are thousands of smarter people with better experiences and more powerful positions to do so. By this point, I have largely became a passenger in our covid fight. Sorry, perhaps more a foot soldier. As I don on my PPE, N95 masks and face shield, time and time again with each patient regardless of their medical complaint or presentation, it has became a redundant, tiring routine. And each day, I go to work and come home, carefully evaluating myself for possible symptoms, before I make the conscious decision of whether it is safe or socially responsible to go out do run errands or see my family (and very, very occasionally, my friends).

How I Iong for the days when a cold is just a cold, and we carry on with our plans as if it’s no significant deal. How our lives do not get turned upside down because of a little sniffle or a scratch in the throat.

But of course, covid have changed all that, and some for the better. Never was it really all that responsible to go out and mingle when you have an illness anyway, and in parts of Asia, the use of masks during cold and flu season, ESPECIALLY with those who have minor symptoms, have long been an accepted custom and rarely questioned (in fact, one would draw dirty glances if they were to step into a crowded subway and let out a sneeze, god forbid, upon their naked, unmasked face..)

So if anything, the heightened sense of awareness and caution against easily transmissible disease is likely here to stay, and hopefully a welcome change at that. As with not showing up to work sick, modifying tasks to allow work from home, and a general increased tolerance for everyone’s different risk aversions are likely positive steps in our increasing dense societies.

But no, this entry is about none of that. For I am sick of covid. (Literally, as I recently caught the illness myself, luckily mild, after a brief trip to Ottawa. More on that later.).

I am writing again because I’ve realized that my life feels emptier when I don’t. Life continues to pass, events come and go, covid lingers, and I go to sleep and wake up checking my work schedule and collect pay checks (well, auto-deposits). I miss the self reflection and the narrative story-telling that writing allows for me. In short, in adds significance to my days, my weeks. And more and more I am realize that, perhaps for me, that is what give life meaning. When you have a chance to pause and reflect, and solidify your experience into a memorable narration (even if it’s just to myself), it takes a symbol of significance inside a storage box into our mind’s memory banks. And perhaps that is the true meaning of life. A collection of memories, made significant by the collector.

And so I’m going to try to keep writing. On nothing in particular, as quite evident from my blog over the years. And to no one in particular, other than myself. Because it helps me make sense of my world.

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Oh, and for those of you who may not know, ironically over these covid years, I’ve met someone, from halfway across the country. :) (yes yes, it’s been a while..) It has not been easy, though, to develop and grow a relationship, over 4000km or close to 5 hours of flying, in the middle of what might be the hardest two years of air travel restrictions and sickness-implications ever in our lifetime. But through our natural silliness together, our witty and comical chemistry, and our what seems very innate understanding of each other (at times it does seem like we were both cut from the same cloth, although a decade part), we were able to maintain what has been a wonderful companionship and at times, when we are lucky enough to visit, some heart melting intimacy. I cannot wait, for when the impacts of covid finally fades (although not the virus itself), and the chance for much easier visits and interactions presents itself to us in the near future, for us to spend even more time together than we have manage, and nurture this seed that we have been trying to water and grow via internet links and FaceTime movies and late night video chats. (And on that note, the image above at the title of this post would make a little more sense to those who are reading. It is perhaps one of my favourite photos of our time together so far. We were sitting on a beautiful deck waiting for our morning coffee on the banks of the St. Lawrence at old Quebec, groggy from the morning sun, when she cheekily snapped a photo of our feet in parallel when I wasn't aware..  ).