Of Cauterized Human Flesh

The more time I spend in the field of medicine, the more I respect it. 

Who said it was easy to bear the smell of cauterized human flesh?

Or work eight to eight?

Or make sure that your patient is not left wanting for anything?

Or stand long hours giving another human the best chance of survival?

Or breaking bad news?

Or knowing that despite knowing all that you do, despite learning all that you have learnt, you still have limited power in controlling the outcome of your patients well being?

Or learning to maintain the delicate balance between compassion and apathy to preserve your own being just so you can do all this again the next day and again and again?

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

On Melancholia

There is this thing about learning from a young age, that you are not entitled to happiness, It's very melancholic and very sombre. That, I imagine to be the true form of life. I envy the joys of not growing up with this melancholia, but I also know that it hits everyone one day or another. I just don't know how beneficial it is to get hit by it at a younger age: does it equip you to deal with melancholia much better later on in life, or does it just increase your exposure time to it in this lifetime?

 It gets overwhelming at times.

There are periods of decreased melancholia to balance out periods of severe melancholia. Perhaps that is an unfair way to describe it. Maybe a more fair way to describe it would be to say "There are periods of stable joy to balance out the periods of melancholia" because even though I currently feel overwhelmed by it, I cannot deny myself the recognition of the times when I felt stable joy and peace.

The reminder of this balance in life is important, especially now, when I feel so overwhelmed by it. And I know that I am overwhelmed because it is manifesting itself by a questionable belief that I have ALWAYS felt like this; that it has ALWAYS consumed me.

Isn't it strange to be so consumed by melancholia momentarily that you forget what it felt like to not be consumed by it? How can it, and why even does it, have to power to be so consuming? So completely enveloping that you forget every other moment of joy that you have ever felt?

I am told that in moments like these only you can give yourself hope. True. I can. And I do believe that I am now better equipped than I ever was to not let it fully consume me. I am just surprised by the momentary power of it. I can work to reverse it's effects, but the power it has, I just want to take this moment to acknowledge it.