To whom do I whinge?

I have no one.

Not in an antisocial way, but just simply, there is no one I can whinge to, not without feeling like they see me as someone weak or stupid or mellow or melancholic, though I know I can be all of those things simultaneously. How do you tell someone that all you need is a pat on the back and then them checking on you again once in a while? 

But I know everybody's busy and they have their own things too, and to be fair, I haven't been such a good friend either. I don't have a fair excuse either. I honestly just feel like I've had enough of typing on my phone. It used to be more fun when it was Yahoo! Messenger. Now WhatsApp is just full of people contacting me from work, sending me promotions on houses I cannot afford, gym membership offers, etc. It's too much, overloaded. But again, I just know that these aren't excuses to be a bad friend.

Also, the thing is, I know I cannot be the only one walking around with such heavy, very heavy hearts. I feel like I want to scream on top of my lungs that life sucks. It sucks a lot, and I am tired of pretending that I am this optimistic patient and cheerful all-around person. I know shits do go downhill once in a while, I might get sued at work, inflation keeps happening, and the money I've saved would mean nothing in the next few years. Investment gets riskier in this current political climate. Most times, I just put my hand on my chest, and I just carry on, hoping I won't ever put myself in debt and that I trust my finance mentor. I don't think I'd know what to do if (*knocks wood*) this plan I am setting up fails.

My parents are getting older, and they think doing health check-ups is too bothersome. I know they hide things about how they currently feel about their body. I wish I had the money to give them what I could give my rich patients. I wish my dad did not have to go overseas anymore, and that the house could be paid off, and nothing else would break. I wish my mum and my sister had something simpler to do, anything less government-related, because most of the government are twats anyway. They all deserve better, and I wish I could give them that "better". I also am too scared of losing any of them because really, I have no one.

I still have so much ahead of me, sometimes, I think that it is too much. I still have school for another 8 years. If I am stuck in this country, that's 8 years of tuition and unpaid labour disguised in the form of "student-training". Leaving the country isn't promising either; the NHS is a mess, I would die under Middle-East heat, not rich enough to afford moving to the US or afford Australian examination, and I am not fluent enough in languages other than English and Indonesian.

I will get through those phases, somehow.

But worst of the worst, it's the feeling of constant inadequacy and worthlessness in general. Especially, just especially, keep on being reminded that even I cannot be loved, not worth an extra thought of flowers. Even when I was supposed to be important, I was still not worth any flowers- the fresh ones out of Tesco. I did too much and not enough at the same time. It's worse than all the other shitshows that have been going on because this also has the element of embarrassment in it. I really wish I were worth something special. 

Also, I wanna be pretty.

I know being prettier wouldn't change anything, but maybe it'd make it feel like, at least there was something good about me. But pretty also requires money (in my case), yet that money must go somewhere else to save all the other things that also need saving. Maybe, also, I will be able finally afford a nice therapy without time limits and not during office hours. 

My dream right now is not neurosurgery, it's not skiing in Lapland anymore, it's not a happy, beautiful family of my own, it's just being in someone's embrace, with my back being patted for so long, and I could cry as long as I can, and I'd fall asleep. I'd fall asleep so peacefully, and the next morning, I just knew that I'd be able to go on again. My heart would feel light again. 

But again, there's no one for me. No one at all, no one to pat my back, no one even to whinge to. 

...

I really cannot wait until there is someone (I hope there will be, lol). He'll give me those long pats in the back, and he'll appreciate my love for him, and he'll love me even more than I love him. I will feel safe around him, not anxious, not unsure. I will love loving him. I'll get through all my days just fine, no matter how much of a comedic tragedy those days will be. 

But will that day ever come?

You are not the same person anymore

I know that, sometimes, I still look-at your profile, at the small traces you leave behind-half-expecting a song, a line, or something that still carries the Christmas spirit you used to have. But it’s become clear that you aren’t the same person anymore. That isn’t a bad thing. I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re doing well. I just don’t think I would recognize you now.

Maybe that’s fine. Maybe it’s just as likely that you don’t miss me either, that I’ve become unfamiliar to you too.

And I find myself asking, without urgency or expectation:

Who were we back then?

H (letter nobody will ever read)

 I am not really sure what to write, but I know for sure that I miss you. Losing you—truly losing you this time—gives me a strange sense of peace while still stirring something in my chest, because nothing should ever end this way. But I will finally stop worrying about things I should never have had to worry about. Who could blame the silly girl in love with a silly man?

You will live a happy life, I know that. You won’t do to the girl you love what you did to me. Because as much as you hate admitting it, you know you did me wrong—and maybe, just maybe, a small part of you regrets it. And I know you will eventually become the man I once thought you already were.

Until the next many years, all I ask for is your understanding. I don’t need you to come back or attempt to fix what’s already broken. I just need you to understand that for once, I just wanted to feel like I was enough for you—to feel appreciated, valued, cherished. Because those are things every person deserves, even me.

Maybe someday, when the noise in your life finally quiets down, you’ll remember the softness, the laughter, the small things that were never actually small. Maybe you’ll remember how you were my priority—how I would cross the ocean for you.

And explain this to me—why did the woman after me deserve more care than I ever got? What did she give you that I couldn’t? Or is your kindness just selective, depending on who you feel like impressing that day? And tell me, while we’re being honest—why would you never defend me, not even once?

And about the other girl we always argued about—how did her feelings, a woman you barely even know, become more important than mine? Was it insecurity? Ego? Or was it simply wrong to ask to matter—to your choices, your actions, your heart—after everything I crossed and carried for you? Is it wrong to ask for kindness and comfort? Is it, as you once called it, madness? Why keep her when you knew how deeply it hurt me? Does your entertainment mean more than I ever did? Why do I keep losing, and why can you never be the one who loses?

Whatever the answer is, the damage has been too extensive, too deep-rooted in my heart. Did I ever deserve this? Is my truest colour only the way I react when I’m hurt? Am I truly the terrible person you reduced me to? Or was I simply the easiest one to blame?

And whether you remember or forget the person I was before all this, that rests with you. Rewrite the story however helps you sleep. I know who I was. I know what I gave. And I know that my love, flawed or not, was real. We were both just learning people, even if we learned at different costs.

But whether you remember how we were before all this or let it fade, I’ll be okay. Losing you hurts, but it also frees me. I’m learning to want what wants me back. I’m choosing peace instead of longing, even when longing feels familiar.

I hope my eyes will stop recognizing yours. I hope we never meet again—and I mean that with all the softness and all the steel left in me.

So this isn’t a plea, or a wish, or one of those half-hearted hopes we used to hold onto.
This is me, letting the last words settle, expecting nothing in return.

M

 

Internship Diary (Part 1: The Very First Day)

The very first shift as "doctor", on her own

A clinic with just three beds for "emergency" cases. A working EKG is a blessing. Ketorolac is a friend. A mortar and pestle sitting in a room, sending me back to 1800s to the day when I was a witch.

A lady in her 60's came with the complaint of being unable to urinate, distended abdomen, severe abdominal pain, patient could not walk for a week. Oh God what should I do?? Called my supervisor, SBAR (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) was nowhere inside my head, panicking (lol). Maybe the patient had ?stroke. Was told to put a catheter. Omg how come I not know. Trying to put a catheter on, finding the urethra was like finding my will to live (somewhere, but somehow seems inexistent). Catheter was put, patient felt better, sent her home only to almost have a heart attack the moment I realised that the patient could have a spinal cord injury - should be referred for a further work up. 

Embarassing. Disappointment. I'd let the government take 1000 social credits (if possible) from me. Mind you, I did a fair share of studying spinal cord pathologies as a neurosurgery elective student. God really tells me to humble down.

New three patients came, panicking, crying, screaming (the patients, not me - though i was so close to joining them). Motorcycle accident involving adolescents, three kids on a motorcycle, driver kid was wounded (you'd meet like at least 10 motorcycle accidents in a week if you live in Lombok). Lacerations -  I love skin suturing but something about the lidocaine is completely sus - sorry kid.* 

First shift I already had to pull out my debate skill from junior high, this time to use it to tell patients to bring their kid with suspicion of fracture to be sent to the hospital. They refused, not sure what they'll do. High chance it's shaman - my school prepared me for this but I didn't have time to do the textbook checklists and decided to just jump to refusal consent and let them home.

Fly high, little angel

A lady called us to come outside saying it's an emergency. Ran to the lobby with a bed, saw a pickup car with more than 5 people in the back, the driver pulled out a kid, unconscious and he put it on the bed. Blood was slowly flowing from the ear and the nose. Kid was as pale as a ghost. No pulse, no breathing - should start CPR. I hinted on a colleague to activate the code blue, everybody else was hesitating.** Pupils were no longer responding. Pronounced the time of death. Cleaned him and did an exam to find out that his hard palate (roof of mouth) is broken to pieces. Very very high suspicion to what we called 'basal skull fracture' - where the floor of your brain broke and everything else that should be contained within it got all messed up. With the facilities available, the lengthy process of referral, it is to no surprise that he did not make it.

Tried to ask the crowd, calmly, what happened. One lady said they found him on the side of the road, then the nurse asked in the local language, they changed the story again saying that the saw the kid was being hit by a car that they don't know - somehow the story changed again that he got hit because he was running around on the road.

None of them was the mother. The mother came not too long after, crying on the floor. I don't know if I will ever be able to answer this but... how do you tell a mother that her baby will not wake up from their last sleep? and that this was not a bad dream? She handed me the family card and it's just her and the kid, it's just two of them together, i don't know for how long.

The next day I got the news that the kid already went out of the road, but the driver was a first-timer in driving. Rest in peace little angel.

*Also wanted to disclose something about sterility but let's not (at least for this time)

**Many places still consider CPR to be "taboo" meaning that if you do it without consent, Indonesians still find it that the CPR might be the cause of the death and they'd sue you, for trying to save them, just because how uneducated we can be, even the roots (so yes, you could still get in trouble even when it's obvious you're doing your job just because the people demanded to the authorities and the authorities aren't very much educated people themselves.