Arriving a little late, I discovered that my desk had been appropriately defaced with birthday wishes and birthday clipart. O Clipart, how do I love thee. Amongst the slice-of-cake confetti that covered my desk was a single “Ultra Lubricated” Lifestyles condom. (spammers, make your funny posts below). Just imagine all of the work inappropriate jokes that this invited.

”Ewww, the nurse called, one of my kids has lice!”
“I gave Kristen lice once.”
”You won’t have to worry about giving her anything else, now.”

“I have to stop lending things to people because I never get them back.”
”Did you need that condom back? I only used it once.”

You get the idea.

Unfortunately, it’s the end of my day and I’m tired and a little sick. I really just want to go home and lie down but I have class tonight. This is all related to an event last Thursday evening.

I was about to go into my Organic Chemistry midterm exam when I got a text from my boss reading something to the effect of, “we need to talk tomorrow.” This has always been a concerning statement, no matter how gently it is delivered. At that point, I discovered that my reaction was to shrug it off and mentally toss it on the back burner, thinking to myself, “I can’t actually be more stressed out than I am now. I’ll come back to it later.” I took the test, a bit sleep deprived/stressed out and went home.

In the morning, I stopped by and chatted with my boss about being burned out. She’s right, I am burning out. We talked about my responsibility to the people on my case load (i.e. it’s ok if they all end up homeless, I don’t need to fix them) and how I am taking care of myself, or rather, not taking care of myself.

I can empathize with those kids whose lives are overscheduled and are, despite it, high achievers. The stress they feel to keep going and keep maintaining their progress 14 hours a day is just wearing. So, today, I feel ill. I really just want to go home and sleep but will be grabbing a quick dinner and then running to class. What’s more amazing is that I’m contemplating keeping the same schedule for next semester based on the level of success I’m seeing now (I did very well on my Organic Chemistry exam. I only missed one question and it was because I didn’t do it at all. Looking back, all I can think is, “Really? I skipped that one? Really?” It was an easy two pointer.)
Well, it’s time for me to run. I hope my evening leaves me feeling a bit more energized.

Nathan and Ingrida, congratulations!
Papa, also, congratulations! How does it feel to be sixty?
Mendon, congratulations (I am still alive). How was the test?

"not bad. It could have been harder. Let me put it this way, I had enough time to invent emoticons for Cthulhu ( :E ) and for Dr. Horrible ( 8:D ). As you can see, I had plenty of free time."

Bummer about getting summoned for jury duty on your birthday.

"Yeah, bummer."

What I am finding is that I am differently motivated than I was when in my undergraduate program. In undergrad I worked hard but the value of success meant less to me than it does now. There are a host of motivations that move me to be interested in succeeding. I know that I need to do well in order to get into medical school (though, I have no fear of the MCAT for whatever reason), I am motivated to do well because I am paying directly for my classes, and I have my own typical desire to be a good student. However, I am finding, now, that I am motivated by a force that I never predicted, I feel that I need to prove to myself and maybe someone else, somewhere, that I can work full time and kick ass at classes at night.

Unfortunately, by the time I get to Friday night, when I should be studying, I'm so burned out by the week that I can't focus on school work. It's like eating granola for every meal, there comes a point where you know that you're hungry but you just can't put another bite in your mouth. Your body won't let you. It makes me want to go to bed at 7:30PM on Fridays.

Despite this, and despite not feeling like I have any time in the world, I've been able to socialize a fair amount. Even if it is only getting together in the evening on weekends when I can't absorb any more information. Being this busy is a new experience for me. I have never been so task oriented. I have always sought unstructured time. Yet, there is a certain pleasantness to simply trudging through a 14 hour day. Something about not needing to fill your day almost makes it easier. I have no intention of becoming addicted to working, by the way, but I can see how some people are able to lose themselves in it. You just get up and go and, when you get back, crash until you have to get up and go again.

Hopefully, I'll still be as chipper as I am now in another 10 weeks. I'll try to make periodic posts to keep you up to date. If all goes well, I'll be able to take 2 night classes again next semester (physics II and O-chem II) and then summer will be a biology course or two and maybe an anatomy and physiology course. I've pretty much set myself up for a year of using my vacation time to study for tests (boo).

I've looked into studying to become a nurse, a master's level nurse, as well as certificate paths, and, of course, becoming a physician. I have settled on studying to be a doctor of medicine. I will be able to fulfill the joke of becoming M.D. M.D. That is, assuming that everything goes according to plan.

In a harried week or two, I've applied to a local community college that offers all of the pre-reqs that I need, been accepted, and have begun looking for schools of medicine to which I want to apply. There are a few in the Chicago area that I am exploring, as well as an MD and DO program in Arizona. I haven't ruled out other states (such as Ohio).

I am not doing this out of a need to cure pancreatic cancer (the disease that killed my mother). Nor am doing this because doctors have a hefty earning potential (though, that is some part of it). I am doing this because it is something that I think I may love to do. I have spent many hours in a hospital ER on many different sides. Never have I been a patient or doctor though. I thought I might take a pass on being a patient and see if I could make a career of being a doctor.

I understand that there are many roles in the hospital to be filled. I may end up becoming a radiologist or RT or RN, however, currently, my goal is to pursue medical school. In this vein, I have decided to set my goals and stick to them as tenaciously as possible. I begin school tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck.

This morning, I was dreaming about being at work. I was trying to help some co-workers find an answer to something and I realized that it was something that the people who used to work with my mother would know. But, for the life of me, I couldn't remember her work phone number for the life of me. I started randomly punching phone numbers in the hope of remembering.

A woman answered the phone and said, "Hello?" I apologized immediately, told her I had the wrong number, and hung up as I remembered the number all of a sudden. After I'd hung up, my phone beeped at me in a way that it never does and I let my finger up off of the hook switch. It was my turn to be the groping voice in the darkness, "Hello?" I queried.

And, there, my mother told me, quite directly and firmly, "Mendon, I answered because this is becoming ridiculous." Then, I woke up to look at my clock and see that it was exactly 5 AM.

So, mommy, I don't know what has become ridiculous. I guess I'll have to wait to find out. One things for sure, I'm not rushing back to sleep any time soon.

(I also realize, the title of this piece could also be, "early morning waking" but that's just a bit too bitter.)

At the same time, I can see clear skies to the south. It sort of makes me concerned about a tornado except that there are no gale force winds. Strange. This is probably not going to be good for the region's flooded areas.

When we got home from the game, we stayed up late telling each other stories and then reminiscing about when we worked together doing roofing and siding. I remember, when I was 15ish, I couldn't have a conversation with my dad. We just couldn't see eye to eye on anything. It was always combative and I felt isolated and distant from him. When I worked for him, though, it was an entirely different story. He was concise, communicative, and remarkably patient. It was clear that he loved his work and prized the quality more highly than he valued his reputation.

For a while, along with playing catch with him in the back yard and going fishing, these were some of the best periods of my life with my dad. I guess this is partly why I like to socialize within the framework of a social activity with straightforward objectives (board games, sports, etc...). With my dad and I, it was good time. He didn't get angry and I knew, I knew, that he loved me. I knew that he loved me so much that he would let me screw up his work, just so that he could be with me and teach me how to not screw it up quite so badly.

When my mother died in January, there was a switch that got flipped. I used to call my mother for everything and, if you knew her, you know exactly why. She was the coolest person I have ever known. I was privileged to have however brief of an adult relationship with her and blessed to have her as my mother. And, even amidst being diagnosed with cancer, surviving two intense surgeries, and generally just being ill, she still was conscious of her surroundings and her lover for my father.

My mother loved my father. I don't need to tell you this, but I want to. I want to tell you this because my father is like his hands. He is calloused and weather worn, rough, with soil beneath the fingernails from working the garden, the type of dirt that has stained the skin and won't come out with rubbing. His knuckles are stretched because his hands are strong and his grip stretches his skin. Yet, there are points, not unlike the webbing that are soft and vulnerable. So, when I say, my mother loved my father, I do not mean that she was laodicean about it. She loved him with every fiber of her being and every bit of her soul. She loved him with a devotion, and tenacity, and sanctity that I one day hope to encounter and witness again. And she didn't just show it, she radiated it.

My mother lay on her death bed. No, she was still walking around and moving and laughing and feeling good and you know what she said to me, what she said to my siblings? She said, "I'm worried about your father. I worry that after I die, you will drift away from him. I worry that other people will do that, too." She didn't say this to me once. She made it abundantly clear to all of her children that she did not want this to happen. She did not want to see her family drift apart because the glue that kept it together had been washed away.

And, now, my mother is dead. May God bless her and keep her always near. And, not a day goes by when I do not think about my mother. I think about how much she loved me and how easy it was to lover her back. I think about how much I just want to call her on the phone and hear her talk to me one more time. I want a last good hug from her. I want to have a mommy. I want to have mymommy.

Equally, a day doesn't pass where I don't think of my father. He lives alone, in Cleveland, in the house that he and my mother worked so hard to buy. Now, he owns it and cannot share it with my mother. She died before they made the last payment on the house. What bitter prizes with which fate rewards us! I am realizing how much my mother cared about my father, now. I am also learning why.

It seems that my relationship with my father is undergoing a third transition. He is my only parent, now. He is my only father. And, my time with him is limited. Not because he is dying, but because we are all limited by the natural consequences of time and entropy. I am learning how to have a conversation with my angry, sad, beautiful father.

I am learning to shut the hell up and listen. I am learning to see the poignancy of his suffering and the desert that is his isolation. I am learning that I need to connect with this man who is my father, who is my friend, who is the one that when I die, will, again, take my childlike hand in his and guide me, again, to the path of the Blessed Beauty. Who will, carry me, sleeping and aloof , regardless of the cost to himself, for love of me, wherever I need to go. Who will neither complain nor boast, but simply plod quietly along, smiling.

Tonight, I took my father's rough and and strong and work worn hands in my own. They still seemed just as big and powerful to me as they did when I was little. Only, now, they were different, or I was different, and I knew that they loved their hurt for their sacrifice. I knew that that sacrifice was for me, was for my brother and sisters, was for my mother, was for the whole world. And I know that my father is weary of this world for my mother.

I looked my father in the eyes and I said to him, "Papa, I am so sorry that you lost your sweetheart. Thank you for being so strong for us when mommy died. I know... no, I don't know. I know what it's like to lose my mother. And I know how much I want her back and how much it hurts. When I finished he serenely responded, agreeing, "No, you don't know."

I wanted to tell him that it was acceptable for him to stop being strong but I didn't have it. I wanted to tell him that I needed him, that he wasn't allowed to give up. I wanted him to know that he could be vulnerable but that he had to keep living and working and dedicating himself to his life the with the same zeal that he has always had. I wanted him to promise me that he would always be there, sitting across the table from me, exhausted, hurt, worn out, lonely, isolated, but there, loving me all the same, proud of me, proud of my siblings, satisfied in the knowledge that he has served his heart's desire and highest aspiration his whole life and safe in the knowledge that he will continue to serve. It wasn't in me, either. Instead, I did the best I could not to cry and smiled at him.

I cry, sometimes, when I'm driving in to work in the mornings and I listen to NPR. I cry when I hear about tens of thousands of people dying in China. I cry when I hear about the opposing softball team assisting an injured opponent who just hit a home run successfully round the bases because her own team cannot touch her without invalidating the hit. I cry when I think of something clever to say to my mother, but I do not cry enough. I do not cry when I am at work. And, often, I do not cry when I am at home. And, even when I cry in the car, I cry only a little so that it does not impair my vision. And, I do not cry enough. I do not cry enough.

Ultimately, we hung out, drank some tasty beverages, chilled, played video games, and watched some BSG. In retrospect, I find it a little odd that we celebrated by doing what we do when we're not celebrating. But, I guess that that means we're living to the fullest, or something like that. At the very least, it seems that we're living for the moment. I can handle that. Tomorrow could be our last. I'm glad that I spend most of my days with people I love and am happy to tell them that.

For the rest of you that I love that I don't get to see everyday (you know who you are), I miss you. Come hang out some time before we don't have the chance to anymore. I have an extra bed you can sleep in, too.