almost, or less far

Today was productive. Both my patients left the hospital in the morning, so my team let me go in the early afternoon. I went on a run, took the exam and completed my evaluations and portfolio for my medicine rotation, scrubbed the bathroom, cooked dinner, watched The Office with J, finished packing for our month off, and purchased two Christmas gifts. I think I was in a frenzy for control and completion today in part because yesterday I was helpless. It was the hardest day of medicine thus far. I crumbled for a moment smaller than I needed, then crumpled the sad and angry and pain in my hand, and it's stayed there since. It deserves much more time and care than I can give here. But it has given a needed push to what I feel I might devote my next year to, a year we call the fifth year because it's an extra year to the conventional four-year program, but happens in between our third and fourth years of school, and is there for us to pursue anything we feel would be useful. And it emphasizes how much has built up over these months, and how much I will need this next month of school-free to process, even as I know this will only be the beginnings. The pressure inside looks forward to a short expanse of warm faraway blues and the effortless welcome of home.