#liminal times

[historyofrobots]

To better adhere to social distancing protocols, from now on I would only like to meet in liminal spaces at liminal times 

[elsewhereuniversity]

I saw the post about doorways, and now I'm wondering about transitional times of the year. At midterms, would students congregate together late into the night not just to study, but to keep track of each other because it is easier to slip to the other side then?

Yes, without question - the desperation, exhaustion, and late hours make it pretty easy to lose people, and the general strangeness of everyone during finals means that you may not notice a changeling until you come back from break and Tongs is still speaking in tongues and eating raw eggs.

[corvikari]

I have payed for my hubris from my 3am venture. I have woken up in a strange and liminal time (10:30am) and I think I hate it more than if I had woken up at 3am.

[whitecoatdiaries]

I have 2.5 months off between my last 4th year rotation and when intern year starts.  

I fill it with joy. I spend two weeks on a beach in Mexico, watching the sun set and re-reading my favorite book. I rock my cousin’s two-week-old infant to sleep, explore all the local hiking trails I can find, go on a bunch of dates, do yoga outside, look for god, make mojitos for my parents, check out books from the library, buy all new furniture for my apartment, water my ever-growing garden, see my friends, over and over, and delight in the ordinary things we do together: not -catching up- or -grabbing a quick drink- but letting the day roll out together in front of us, running errands and driving to the beach singing at the top of our lungs and cooking dinner and having meandering, generous conversations. Time becomes my favorite luxury. 

I say goodbye to friends, too, who are moving away. For the first time I’m thankful for the incessant chatter of the icons on my phone, how easy it is to send that text. I hug everyone, say i love you, exhale. 

And then intern year starts. I’m terrified the weeks leading up to it, the same old fears in a different costume. I’m afraid of becoming someone else, exhausted and crumple-faced. Of not Measuring Up. Of having forgotten everything. Of giving up so much of myself to remembering everything that I become the compulsive, anal person I know I can’t love. That this trial of fire will singe me irrevocably. That medicine isn’t what I thought it could be. That This is the End of My Beach-Days, the end of being carefree, of allowing others to grip their lives loosely. That my own grip will tighten on myself and those around me, death-grip. That I will believe again that there is more suffering in the world than love. 

On day 1, I clip my pager onto my scrubs. I’m overwhelmed by all of the patients I have on my list, feel adrift in their labs and vitals and procedures and blood gases and vent settings and meds and venous sats and central line readouts and advance directives. I click through patient after patient on my list, scribbling furiously, trying desperately to build enough of an understand to present on rounds. And then I fly through my patients’ rooms, introducing myself, beaming, my heart in my throat. They are sick but they still smile back. My voice gets the slight southern lilt that it always does when I’m in the hospital. 

One patient., Mr. B, has been in the hospital for over two months. He knows everyone. I’ve been told, many times, “just don’t break him.” During my routine exam, I press on his belly, and he yelps, loudly. My hands fly back and my jaw drops, but before I can even start theorizing about his abdominal pain, he lets out a big belly laugh and says, “Just had to mess with you. I gotta keep things interesting, you know.” I laugh with him, a deep laugh of relief and an even deeper joy, grateful for the reminder than the human spirit is just as resilient as I remember it, that hospital rooms are still bedrooms in their own way, that if this man, who truly never knows what the day will bring, can give me the widest grin at 6am and welcome me to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, that my heart’s going to be just fine, too.