Suffering

I was cruising along with life, tackling one obstacle at a time.  Sometimes these challenges are small bumps in the road.  Other times, they’re huge barriers, or at least this one is.  It’s not easy to explain, but since no one’s probably reading this, I might as well elaborate.

I’ve been with Kelly my fiance for over 4 years together.  We’ve been engaged for about 2 years or less.  Kelly is a perfect blessing in my life.  As a Christian later in life, I have found it hard to be with someone who grew up as a Christian.  On the other hand, being with a non Christian was quite a challenge as well, not being able to relate to my true desires.  Kelly was the perfect compromise.    Also being a Christian later in life, she understands my past and integrates well with my present.

Our relationship started out as only God could have planned.  We have phenomenal chemistry.  We’re both goofy.  She’s full of fun.  She’s also in the medical field (3rd year medical student.)   On occasion, we have arguments and rarely have they gone beyond that day.   We talk out our differences and issues.  This is definitely one of the greatest attributes of our relationships other than the fun stuff.  We read the bible and pray together.  Even though we aren’t “religious” about it, we try to make it a routine.

Anyway, fast forward to today.  Kelly has been going through some tough times.  Given, she is a medical student, times are going to be tough.  Medical school is so underrated by the common crowd.  Yes, we are less than 1 percent of the population who has made it this far.  On the flip side, this crowd also endures one the toughest experiences in life.  With board exams, short tempered attendings, back stabbing fellow students, grueling hours per week, sleep deprivation…..I could go on.  On top of this, medical students lack social support because they have less time to have fun or socialize.   There is also an “invisible house” to pay off; over a quarter of a million dollars of debt at the end of four years as you are congratulated into your 3+ residency program.  Then, when you’re in your late twenties, you’re earning just enough money to afford a simple apartment and hand down furniture while paying off your quarter million dollar debt over the next 10years of life.

Kelly met her breaking point today.  As her future fiance, it didn’t help that we had another argument about our upcoming financial situations.  We have been planning our dream wedding with a limited budget.  I can see how devastating it is to dream this day all your life and have a fraction of your expectation because of money.  It doesn’t help that we are pinching pennies to make it by this period of our lives.  Don’t get me wrong, we still enjoy some things once in a while, go out to the movies once in a while or going out with friends for a birthday on occasion.   But this has been our budget since we’ve been in college.  One might say, there was a little more financial freedom in college with the help of parents.

Parents (my future in-laws);  this could be the foundation of Kelly’s dysthymia or possible depression.  Kelly’s parents are wonderful, well to do, good intentioned, diplomatic people.  I personally welcome them in my life.  I would love to establish a closer relationship with them as a matter of fact.  Kelly however since the beginning of her college years at UCSD, confided in me that they have not been there for her.  Sure, they provided material needs for her but emotionally have be distant, biased, and unsympathetic to her cause and goals in life.  I used to justify the reason for certain incidents and qualified they’re actions.  First of all, I found out that we the wrong thing for a fiance, future married man to do.  Secondly, I realized the cumulative impact of emotional turmoil that this has caused Kelly.   There are days were she cries incessantly because another inequity.  Their family dynamics consists of assumptions, hints, suggestions, a passive aggressive approach of communication;  open communication being talking around the pink elephant in the room.

One would think this is just a family ordeal, superficial, something which could be overlooked.  Well, when it brings someone into a deep depression, it becomes more complicated.  After Kelly and I resolved our argument tonight.  We made up and were getting ready to go exercise, she sat in her chair in a catatonic like state.  What’s wrong?  Her parents don’t love her, don’t care for her, don’t realize her, don’t really know her, and ultimately ignore her.   Suddenly the explosion of realization hits her like a cannonball in her stomach.  The only one who tells her she’s loved is her fiance who’s expected to tell her this anyway over and over again.   Her breath is taken away from her and her muscles become limp.  Doctor’s call this “hispanic panic” at Pomona Valley Hospital; a condition where emotion overcomes the power of the physical body.

I laid by herself, praying for her all night.  Dear God, rescue her.  Dear God, give her peace.  Dear God, help her seek you.   I stroked her hair, whispering I love you all night until she fell into sleep.  Even as I sit here typing, I look back at her on the floor and she’s not right.  Inside, I see she’s troubled by her parents, by life, by med school, even though in some ways, we have it made.  We have a bright future.  We have all the material we need to succeed.  We have parents.  Yet, even then, there are struggles I cannot deny;  troubles which are deep rooted; complicated;  emotional not physical.

I’m sure we’ll work through this.  But this is it.

who do I turn to?

A few weeks have past of my residency. It hasn’t been too rough on me. Internship year is more benign than medical school so far, but only because I was one of the lucky interns who started with outpatient pediatrics. Not only is pediatrics a fun and somewhat cush specialty, but the season for pediatric pathology is low. Despite all this, my life is still chaotic. Once again my life feels like i’m continually adjusting. I still don’t have local friends.  I’m living in between to places.  I don’t have a steady church. And the most unsettling part of my life, my fiance is holding a serious grudge on me.  My life with God is still hanging on thin thread. Who do I turn to? Sometimes it is easy to rely on a best friend like my fiance, Kelly. I can vent to her, I can laugh with her, I can share my life with her, I can go to church with her. Soon enough without realizing it, I’m replacing God’s role in my life with her. I become dependent on her. The loophole is my present scenario. What happens when we get into an argument? I can’t rely on her like i used to.  She is unwilling to do all the things I had previously depended on for. In addition there’s an adverse tension as I walk in the room. So, as the backup plan, I have no other choice but to rely on God. That is where I am at now. As awful as this sounds, it is the raw truth. I wish my life followed the guidelines of the bible every second of my life, something of which I used to label, “sanctification.” It’s difficult to follow that track. Its only easy when you are actually following it, to proclaim to everyone else that it is in fact easy to follow. So once again, I by default fall in the longing need to feel spiritual. This is how God brings me back to Him: slowly but surely. So what do I ask? How do I ask? The prayer is the same each time, without variation from the last. It usually brings me back to the same cycle. Cycles are hard to break out of. So, I pray for a prayer warrior to pray for me. I’m out of the prayer juice……my prayers aren’t as effective as those who lead the “sanctified” life. I’ll pray. I’ll read the bible.  I renew my goal for change.  Then, I’ll tell you how life turns out afterward.

new territory

For all those reading, it has been a while since I’ve written anything meaningful, so my words will flow out like chunks of brick out from my disorganized mind. So, once again, I find myself on new turf. I’ve been constantly mobile the last decade of my life, leaving old friends behind and starting all over again. A little bit of my past is tucked away in each phase of life, some memorable, others regrettable. The benefit is that the past can be safely guarded to myself or those close to me. The problem is that I never can be openly truthful and completely real to any one person. So then, I begin the story of my new branch of life in Pomona, California (Southern California). I will be starting my Family Practice Residency Program this year as an Osteopathic Physician at Pomona Valley Medical Center. I hardly know anyone in this area. The only reason I’ve come here is to be close to my girlfriend, Kelly, who will be attending medical school nearby my hospital and whose parents live close by. I’m far away from my own parents who live in Sacramento. My brother’s family lives in orange county. For anyone who’s considering stalking any of these relatives of mine, you can forget it; they are poor. Anyway, getting back to the subject, I have very few friends in the area. My mobility over the last few years has kept me quite the antisocial worm. I’ve tried keeping in touch with old friends, but quite honestly, out of the bunch, I’m the rare one who initiates the kindle. So, as I wait for residency to start, I am lonely, bored, bordering dysthymia.  And so I begin to miss some of the true jewels in life that kept me from this state in the past:  most notably, God.

my first blog

wasting my time away until residency starts, I aim’ed a good college friend, who introduced me to blogging. I feel i’m wobbling my way through this first blog. As time goes on, I’m sure i’ll feel a bit more comfortable. At the moment it feels a bit intimidating, revealing everything to the world.