On reluctance.

Shower thoughts.

Winter seems to put a little damper on everybody’s work efficiency. I’m gonna call this the reluctance tax. I usually don’t snooze my alarm, but in the winter, the activation energy for sliding out of bed into chilly reality is just high enough to make me beg Alexa for an extra five minutes. Or fifteen. Or thirty. Or heck it, an extra hour.

Then I blearily stare at myself in the mirror a little longer before walking into the shower and turning on the ice-cold spray.

Then I shut my eyes a little longer under the now-steaming deluge before turning it off and stepping out into the somehow still cold bathroom.

Exiting my house is like gritting my teeth before sliding into an icy pool. My whole body tenses up and I plunge, sometimes too stiff to even attempt putting on my down coat, so I hug my jacket instead. Then I gingerly drive, touching my frigid steering wheel with two fingers at a time, like a velociraptor. Finally when I lurch into the school building, at the first fierce draft of heat I gasp, big, heaving breaths, like a shocked infant reinterred in the womb. A reverse birth. Warm and warm and warm.

All in all, my morning routine, my everything routine, is a step-down journey of decreasing coze-level, and in the winter it seems to take twice the amount of time as in the summer. Thanks, reluctance tax.

I’m at the end of my pre-clinical courses! My classmates and I have been hanging out more than ever, but I almost don’t know how I’ll manage the next two and a half weeks with nothing looming, nothing impending, nothing to study for coming up (well, clerkships, but even then…). Trying to kick back and relax after such a long time is like loosening a corset and trying to take a breath of fresh air, only to find that your lungs have shrunk meanwhile and you’ve been at maximum capacity this whole time.

In theory, I’ve only done a year and a half of medical school. But since 4th year seems to just be flitting around the country doing residency interviews, and our curriculum is accelerated to 1.5 years of pre-clinicals and 1.5 years of clinicals, I’m more or less halfway through. How quickly life seems to be passing. My friends are getting married, having children, settling into careers instead of jobs, moving to different worlds, and I still eat breakfast looking at the swingset my sister and I played on in primary school. I remember spending sun-drenched afternoons looking for four-leafed clovers in the backyard, discovering peanuts buried in the soil behind the slide, and breaking open these strange-looking grasses that turned out to be wild scallions, with their spicy scent. Have all the adults I’ve known been carrying around their own childhoods inside them, just like I am now? Like a souvenir snow-globe? How come they didn’t tell us children to work extra hard to remember those moments? That they wouldn’t come by again?

But then I feel the same should apply for me now. My days in medical school are so comfortable, so relatively carefree and easy. I get so much time with my friends, I live with my family, and the families in the church are so close to me. These days’ll never come by again, either. I’ll try and capture these snowglobes, too, while I still can.

Since Thanksgiving, I feel as if I’ve been drifting further from the Lord. Hypothesis: I’m no longer the first to wake in the mornings, and waking in medias res makes it hard to get to a quiet space with God. Lord, where are you? Don’t get me wrong, He’s there when I call. But I don’t feel like I’m under the full wattage of His smile. Not because of any great offense, but because… maybe I’ve been paying Him too little attention.

I remind myself that it’s OK to have ups and downs with the Lord, but at the same time I feel as if I’m not trying hard enough to pursue. Not an easy thing to talk about, because I might seem like one who is enjoying the Lord, but inwardly still be searching for Him among the daughters of Jerusalem and the watchmen of the city (Song of Songs).

Does it make me a hypocrite? Having the form of holiness, yet denying its power? So I’m not gonna pretend. The Lord searches and knows the hearts — He knows where I am. So why can’t everyone else, too? I hope by sharing, other people who have walked the same steps can know they’re not alone. Lord, I still love You. Lord, find me. Lord, where are You? Lord, I still love You.