My husband is upstairs asleep in our bedroom and I'm in our living room, restless. I just popped "The Notebook" into the DVD player and I know in advance I will be bawling by the end. I had dinner with two other residents on Friday night and we started discussing books and our inability not to cry when reading remotely sad books, watching sad movies or even watching a sitcom with even the slightest tinge of a sad undertone. Now all three of us are surgery residents and likely grew up as girl power tomboys and I'm pretty sure in our younger days we didn't cry over or even watch sappy movies, so why now - coping. We watch people die and families experience what we know to be life-altering losses and we keep going. With no sleep and little rest and terrible food we keep going. We mention the condensed version of our sad stories to another resident or maybe even our families, but we do not grieve, or reflect, or truly get to feel anything. As a result, we cry at other things that aren't real to keep from crying about the things that are. But, every now and them something breaks through the veil and the floodgates open and you feel everything you haven't cried about for months and months. I recently learned that a friend of mine was pregnant with twins. I felt awful that I didn't already know, realizing how much we'd fallen out of touch. Friday night she lost her twins. I haven't stopped crying since.
Dear friend - Much love and prayer always to you and your family.
