The next few months are going to stretch me in ways that I can't quite anticipate and that, to be quite frank, I look forward to about as much as drinking paint thinner.
I'm not alone in feeling this way; many of us feel vulnerable in the wake of this election. Many of my dearest friends find the holidays especially challenging--whether it is the first time they celebrate without a loved one or, like me, they find themselves unlikely to enjoy traveling home and are not celebrating with a significant other.
Dan is abroad. Over the course of the next two weeks, I will turn in six major projects and papers for my academics. I will also finalize client reports. Directly after that, I will take 3 final exams.
Then, I will...go home to Kentucky? I'm not imagining that being healthy for me. Codependent dynamics and a travel time that takes at least a day each way? No thanks.
Because then, while Dan is still gone, I will study for comprehensive exams, in a program where I've been around low-key mean girls for the majority of the time. There are a few wonderful women, and I will study with them.
On my birthday at the end of January, I will start my externship in the hospital. ...In the trauma and intensive care units. Today, I was asked how I felt about confrontational patients who can't be reasoned with and about managing bodily secretions, including the secretions of patients in desperate need of oral care. There was talk of "vacuuming out aliens" from patient's mouths. There was talk of multiple assaults and suicide attempts and gunshot wounds.
[This is a big punch in the gut to me, in that i got into speech pathology and have, thus far, conducted therapy playfully and with great enthusiasm, focusing on all areas of language (morphology, syntax, phonology, articulation, pragmatics), on voice (vocal hygiene and proper resonant techniques), and on cognition. Never tracheostomies, or even swallowing. I can address behavior problems at any age, but critical care is not my wheelhouse.]
There was also significant discussion about the compassion that enables SLPs to complete challenging tasks like these, and I was surrounded by wonderful, brilliant people in this interview.
But, you guys. I'm not ready for any of this, when taken altogether. Not knowing how fragile our democratic experiment has turned out to be. Not knowing that I will be alone through what is, for many, a celebratory time of year and with such extra stress. Not while knowing that patients deserve dignity and kindness and skill, but that I doubt I have the stomach or emotional reserve to make that happen without draining myself into sheer physical and emotional exhaustion. Being surrounded by acute trauma and emotional/physical vulnerability is going to take a toll on me because I don't have that "safety bubble".
So, here is my blatant plea for a little extra love. Should you have any kindness to throw my way, please do. I'll do my best with these responsibilities and challenges, and I'm sure that, like always, it will be good enough. But it isn't going to make the next 3 months any easier.
