Whatever It Is That I Feel...

I'm not sure if this will be my last blog post about JVC. I might have one or two more in me regarding goodbyes, but they pale in comparison to how raw this post is to me. I've pretty much poured myself into this over the past few months and frankly I don't know if I can or have anything much more to say. I hope, whoever reads this blog, has found some value in what I've had to say...

These people... These beautiful beautiful human beings...

So this is it friends. Three hundred and sixty-two days. Three hundred and sixty-two grains of sand. THIS IS IT. This journey began with a drive on that sunny Sunday afternoon from Naperville, IL to orientation in Morgantown, IN with a slight headache (a euphemism for a hangover I was nursing because as twenty-somethings do I spent the night drinking with friends). This journey will end in that last week in July, in the not too distant future, as strangers who have become friends who have become family slowly fade into the ether of careers, the abyss of graduate schools, and the embrace of families. I have come to the point of...whatever it is that I feel.

This past Easter Sunday as I sat on a deck with the people that I have come to know as family, I felt the warmth of the sun peaking between the clouds, I heard the wind rushing through the leaves as change began to creep, and I felt blessed. Spring seeped into winter weary bones as the worries and the weights, the fears and the uncertainties, the hopes and the dreams all flowed together in unified peace because of this rugged experience. I came here to serve and to care, to accompany and to lift, to be shattered and to be remade, and I will leave with nothing settled, but with everything changed. I speak of change because the bonds I have made, the work I have done, the pain I have felt, the dreams I have dreamt, the tears I have shed, and the meals I have shared have made this little rock called Earth and these passing moments called memories home. So what do I do now after this year has wrecked me?

Some of us have answers about careers or grad schools; others of us have no answers at all. For me, I no longer know how to live my life. I feel like I'm being pulled in a million directions; I am confused and conflicted.

I thought this year was going to be about simple living, social justice, community, and spirituality. I was wrong about that; those values are hard and it was rare for me to be in touch with them. It has been a complicated year. In fact, I think JVC should revise the four values. They should be uncertainty, doubt, inadequacy, and fear: I have been uncertain of my commitment, doubtful in the work that I was doing, inadequate with who I am, and fearful that I was wasting a year. I have felt ashamed of where I stood. I know that I failed at becoming the fantasy of my best self, but I believe that I avoided falling into the nightmare of my worst self. I'm thinking that maybe the point is in living in the tension between the fantasy of success and the nightmare of failure, of the values dreamt and the values dreaded because without the tension none of this makes sense.

Some of us will succeed far beyond our wildest hopes, yet some of us will fail in the most miserable ways. I imagine some of us will walk into packed auditoriums demanding the attention of students and peers while some will walk into half-empty halls where no attention will be paid. From the hallowed walls of Congress filled with history and power to the packed grittiness of the local DHS waiting room where humanity teems, I see us all moving and shifting because of the stories we have lived.

The stories of this year include the hearts that were broken, the friends that have passed, the students that grew, the children that ran away, the highschoolers that graduated, the patients that never got it, the tenants that kept fighting, and, for some, the community-mate that you could never see eye-to-eye with (for me, it was Bob...who is almost a foot taller than me). It includes the story of my past. The story of a child sitting on his father's shoulders feeling the rain, of his father's demons, of his anger, hatred, resentment, and regret, of a grave where rain reminded him of his childhood, and of a year that has helped me grieve. I'm not sure how, but I think all the stories that I have lived and heard, all the successes and failures I have dreamt and dreaded has pointed me towards one direction: to love.

For most of my life, practicality has nagged me to ignore the stories that are periphery to my goals and to commit to a life skimming the narrowed shallows. I have known I would become a doctor since I was 4 years old. For 20 years I followed that belief. For 20 years I checked off the boxes. For 20 years, I did extremely well. But, for twenty years, those achievements and accolades were only things to be collected and accrued. They were hollow. If anything, this year has taught me to throw that out and to jump into the widening depths of stories where the truest of truths are lived and the realest of reals are felt. This realization has made me reconsider how I use the word love. I got it in my head once that the word love was meant for my future wife and maybe my future children. That was foolish because love is wide! Love makes me dream of my better self.

I have dreams of becoming the Surgeon General, of working for the World Health Organization, of winning a Nobel Prize, of writing for the New Yorker, of opening an art gallery in Chicago, of owning a coffee shop called Puzzles, of learning to play the piano, of falling in love with my soulmate, of nurturing children that will surpass me, of saving a life a day, of inspiring students, and, most importantly, of dreams that I have yet to dream. To live in the widening depths is not to live one dream, but it is to realize that we have dreams as disparate as the infinite number of futures to be lived. The reality is that maybe all, some, or none of these dreams will come true. It is silly to say that the answer after this year is to pursue our dreams and it would be equally silly to say that it would be a betrayal if we fail to do so. What I do know, is that because of this year I will always find meaning even if I have a terrible job, a broken family, or a failed mission. All we can do is embrace and love whatever we may choose or whatever may come our way. To live in the widening depths is not to reach all or some dreams, but to realize that dreams are loves to be stayed true to even if they are not lived.

I'm realizing that the difference between dreams and reality is as wide as the distance between you and me or between us and the people we worked with. That is to say, that the gulf can be as wide as eternity, but simultaneously, as narrow as a silken veil.

The widening depths are where my dreams meet yours and theirs. In those depths is where we begin to see that maybe we're all suffering. Doing this work is gritty and messy and painful and heartbreaking. But, by doing so, we start seeing people as a whole; we start falling in love. In the end, love makes us into our better selves.

Forget the shame of uncertainty, doubt, inadequacy, and fear; put aside the efforts around simple living, social justice, community, and spirituality. This year leaves me with one value: love. It is the center where you and I, us and them, reside as one. Eternity between distinctions dissolve and the only eternity that is left is the vastness and inclusivity of love. I will dream without hope of ever finding the answer, but knowing that by dreaming and by loving, the difference between my successes and my failures, my hopes and my fears, us and them, you and me will nothing but be a silken veil because I will live the truest of truths and feel the realest of reals.

In the simplest of terms, whatever it is that I feel as my good friend John Staudenmaier SJ said, is the depths of passion where grief is intertwined with delight in the deep down there... its name is love.

We Just Decided To + We Can Do Better

Today, I found myself re-reading a friend's blog entry about her ups and downs with JVC. Her entry veered into discussing change. She had this brilliant metaphor because it was so charming and reminded me of a few shirts and shoes that I own.

"Ruined for life” isn't an "Oh shit, I spilled wine on my white shirt! It's ruined!" sort of deal. It's more like those times you spill wine on your shirt, but it's only a little spot of wine and you don't realize it’s there until the fourth or fifth time you wear the same shirt after the initial wine spillage incident. By the time you realize the wine is there, it's been too long to consider the shirt "ruined." Besides, you've been functioning just fine with this so called "ruined" shirt that the tiny stain doesn't seem to matter; it's just a change you decide to live with.- Kristen M (more of her writing here)

The amount of clothes I have bleach stains on because of lab is kind of ridiculous. Sadly, bleach stains are not as exciting as wine stains. Moving on.

One of my favorite shows right now is The Newsroom and one of my favorite characters is the highly idealistic, regularly clumsy, but oftentimes brilliant MacKenzie McHale played by Emily Mortimer. Imagine The West Wing's ever optimistic Sam Seaborn played by ever effervescent manic pixie-girl Zooey Deschanel. Ok, I don't think that does justice to the character; actually that's kind of disturbing. The point is that the character charms us into believing in her idealism and choosing it. The point of her character is summed up by two thoughts: We Just Decided To and We Can Do Better.

Kristen and Mac's words are all about the choice that we oftentimes choose not to make or even acknowledge.

A little over a year ago, I had a choice to make. After months of waiting and receiving rejection letters from medical schools, I finally had my first acceptance letter. Of course during the months between applying and getting that acceptance letter, I had a little bit of an existential crisis. I was exhausted and dejected with the process and with myself. I ended up opening myself up to the possibility of spending a year in service. I figured maybe being rejected was life's way of saying "hey asshole, slow down and think of what matters the most."

I came to the decision of applying to JVC after a whirlwind weekend of going out in the Philippines and Hong Kong, two hungover flights, a lonely return to my house (the heat was broken during December), sleeping for 24 hours, and a whole Giordano's stuffed pizza. I scrambled around asking mentors for rec letters and trying to figure out what the heck the four values meant to me.

Well, all that misery and work came together during a week in May. I received my acceptance to JVC and medical school. Validation! (Not really...more on that in a bit)

I had to choose. My entire life, I can only remember wanting to become a doctor; I idolize my uncles for what they do. I have volunteered in several hospitals, done biochemical research, went on healthcare service trips, learned the basics of being an EMT, observed hours of surgeries, and studied my ass off (ask my cat; she hated it when I would ruin her sleep schedule cause I was studying). Living a life guided by benchmarks can be very unfulfilling because it makes me narrow my perspective. Experiences can be deemed superfluous when you're sprinting towards a goal. Do I keep living in the narrowed shallows or do I try something new?

Before I made my choice, I thought of my frustrations with medicine. I've seen doctors patronize their patients in places I've worked. I've seen patients get ignored because of an overall numbness. I've seen and read of how medicine has failed to tackle social realities (the lady in Honduras, Paul Farmer's anecdotes, or Lia Lee). I've read of how medicine has caused death in its selfish pursuit of success or money (The Deadly Corruption of Clinical Trials). My experiences with healthcare have at times glorified efficiency and action without reflection on human realities. These are the stains that I've come to realize as part of my undergraduate years. Do I choose to keep going and have my life simply guided by benchmarks or to really dig deep and figure out who, what, and where I want to be?

I could've chosen to continue in the narrows in going from benchmark to benchmark. I could have learned the science and the skills in becoming a doctor and I would have been amazing. But, the stains compelled me to be better. I felt boxed in and I had to learn about people first.

I chose to defer my acceptance. I didn't realize it then, but I was choosing to grow in a different way. I'm not saying I would not have grown if I went to medical school; I think medical school forces people to grow and mature, but all this comes in different ways and with different inputs. I doubt I would have met people like Kevin Molloy a future Theologian if I've ever saw one or Sarah Nietz a future activist if I've ever met one or Elizabeth Mahoney a future community organizer if I've ever encountered one. From my experience, the medical field draws a specific kind of person and that tends to create an insulated environment. I believe the reason that there are outliers, people who are not just scientists or physiological mechanics, is because they have opened themselves and chose to be otherwise. I think I subconsciously made that choice a year ago and continually reaffirm that choice.

I really enjoy what Kristen wrote because it highlights the subtlety of what life is about. It touches on the day-to-day moments that dirty my hands. It touches on my development through the years, my interactions with my patients, my misgivings with the healthcare system, and my shortcomings with what I'm doing. All the patients I've grown to love and all the stories I've heard of suffering, unpaid bills, or loss of housing are just moments within a year. Just like those stains that Kristen mentioned, I will carry the stories with me without really knowing where they are or what they're doing until I suddenly see a change in who I am.

Stains can be the joys of life or the pain of suffering. Those stains open us to a world of inclusion that Greg Boyle SJ talks about.

I used to look for "Aha!" moments. I thought those watershed moments would become benchmarks for my life where I thought I would know something. Things like a diploma or an acceptance letter were things I fought to attain because of the validation that come with them. Well, no. Seeing graduation pictures from friends, I began to reflect on my achievements. I used to think that once I got those pieces of paper, I would suddenly feel confident and reassured of my life choices. Well, nope. I've been as doubtful, as worried, as tired, as insecure, and as inadequate as I've ever been even with those pieces of paper.

They were not the watershed moments I had hoped for, but I feel different. Something in between each step of the process, between the pieces of so-called achievement and validation, I was already growing. I began to realize that the change has been happening constantly, endlessly, incessantly. Everything changes every single moment because every experience stains us. But, the stains don't matter unless we embrace them. Validation is about the stains that make my life more meaningful: the stains I choose to acknowledge that make me decide to do better. Kristen and Mac got it right.