mahiwaga

Let the starlight guide my path
bear witness to my salvation
my redemption

Remembering things I’ve always known
but always forgetting
I am but a dust mote
—stardust, really
the spent ash of long dead stars
(from ashes to ashes, dust to dust)

Orion gleaming upon my left
as if in flight
bow in hand, string drawn at the ready

And Venus (whom the pagans named Eärendel)
glittering like a holy jewel
against the empty darkness

The sea to my right, the deep black shadow
sight unseen, the sound of the waves unheard
only the slight tang of salt touching my tongue

I remembered to breathe deeply
and if this is the closest I can get to contentment
At this point, I’ll take whatever I can get

Or self-fulfilling prophecy, depending on how you look at it, I suppose. It all depends on who exactly reads my blog, I suppose.

Enough of being cryptic.

I think—I think—I’ve snapped out of it.

This episode of insanity reminds me of Frodo Baggins’ fate after he fulfills the task of destroying the One Ring. Every year on the anniversaries of his wounding on Weathertop, and the destruction of the Ring in Mt Doom, he basically loses it. (I found an interesting article that deconstructs why Frodo needed to leave the Shire and go to Aman, analyzing things in terms of PTSD.)

Except there have got to be a few Septembers where I didn’t go nuts. OK, maybe I did my brooding last year in August, and the year before that, I had my episodes while on vacation. Hmm. The year before that I thought I was relatively OK. I mean, I was exhausted and moderately physically ill from my first ward month at the Childrens’ Hospital, but I recovered reasonably well during my vacation. Two years before that, as a third year in med school, I did OK. Sure, it was in the aftermath of another disasterous outcome, but, hey, what are you going to do?

Fine. I guess Septembers are just bad for me. I blame the fact that school starts in autumn. So there.

There’s got to be a way to be able to think about the past and not go mad.

To imagine that one could have done better may be more tolerable than to face the reality of utter helplessness.

One of the things we learn as children about wounds is that you should never pick at your scabs. This is guaranteed to prevent healing of the wound, and can actually promote scarring to the point of disfigurement.

You would think that at this stage in my life, after over two decades of formal education, the last seven specifically focused on the Art of Healing™, that I would know this very basic fact that even three year olds can grasp, and that I would not pick at my wounds.

You would, however, be underestimating how absurd I am.

There is this anecdotal idea that continued picking at a wound can also promote cancer. This may well be a mistaken association. True, it is known that some non-healing wounds are actually malignancies, but I think this is just a characteristic of these particular malignancies, and not a consequence of picking at your scabs.

Still, theoretically, the mechanism is sound. Wound healing stimulates cell proliferation, and any time cells proliferate, there is a risk of error in the replication process. Errors in the replication process are otherwise known as mutations. Mutations typically cause cells to self-destruct, but if you accumulate enough of them rapidly, you’ll quickly find that you’re on your way to developing a tumor. But I have yet to read any literature actually confirming that this can happen.

So I wonder, if I keep picking at this wound in my soul, will malignancy soon develop? Is my soul destined to become rotten and defiled? (I’ve tried a few times to hit bottom, but I can never fall far enough. It’s like trying to kill yourself by holding your breath—it’s possible to succeed, but you’ve got to have supreme will, and more likely than not, you’ve got to be insane, too.)

For some reason, I have very little confidence that I will surpass the age of 39. While every sane man is afraid of mortality, I wonder if it might not be a blessing. I can’t imagine going through more than another 10 years of this kind of suffering.

(Then again, there is that infinitesimal chance that I might actually find fulfillment and happiness. Although I’m not holding my breath.)