Longing

I work in three public hospitals. Each has its own mandatory training process. I completed the hand hygiene modules at two of them and submitted those certifications to the third. I was told that the training is site-specific, that I’d need to also do the training at the third hospital.

At first, I felt frustrated. How can hand hygiene be site specific? Is my flu vaccination site specific?

Then I realized my feelings ran deeper than frustration. They spoke of longing.

I came to this work to help people.

My hope is to be supported by a system that enables care rather than obstructs it.

I wonder if there is anyone alive who does not suffer from a case of acute longing every now and then. I used to think that once I reached a certain age, or a certain level of maturity, or a certain financial condition, I would be rid of such feelings. I realize now that there is no such milestone. Longing does not ever retire.

I started writing poetry seriously during COVID, but my relationship with writing began much earlier. I remember writing my first poem when I was ten years old, about the sun being the biggest ball of fire: a bold metaphor, I thought. I showed it to an adult at school—who laughed and said that it was juvenile. That only Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Tagore were worthy of being called poets. That everyone else was plainly pretending.

Hay que volar, hay que encontrar, su propio futuro. (You’ve got to fly, you’ve got to find your own future.) —Lin Manuel Miranda

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Gracias, mi hija. (Thank you, my daughter.)

I struggle to stand up from my kneeling position next to my patient’s bed, touched by her choice of endearment. I’m a second-year medical student, and her kind words have a potent antianxiety effect. Realizing I’d asked her everything that I needed to, I now ask a question I’d been wanting to: Where’s your crossword puzzle? (¿Dónde está tu crucigrama?)

I long for the days when I didn’t need to worry about food recalls. I barely recall the time when I wasn’t concerned about them, but I now look for recalls right after my morning coffee. (Maybe I should look before.)

I long for the days when the phone rang and I’d think, “Who’s calling to say hello?” rather than, “Who’s calling to tell me who’s in the hospital?”

I long for the days when people would call and ask, “How are you?” in a light-hearted way, rather than with the tinge of gravity they use now, since my husband’s cancer diagnosis of last year.

As a little girl, I had a family of dolls. One doll was an outlier, due to my older brother’s pranks. He had cut her long blonde hair (assuring me it would grow back). He’d also used dark-colored permanent markers to highlight her eyes, cheeks, and lips. She looked absurd—almost freakish. That’s when I became familiar with the word yearning: I yearned for her to be accepted by the other dolls for who she was, not how she looked.

Dear readers,

I think it was a Unitarian minister who introduced me to the idea that anger is generally a response to a wound. That truth is viscerally apparent to me every time I straighten up and bonk my head on a corner kitchen cabinet. Ouch! My fury at the cabinet is something to behold.

It’s often easier to express rage than it is to express its underlying vulnerability–like hurt or yearning.