Growing Pains...

I know, I know, I should be studying. But I'm just a bit at my wit's end with that. My US boards are on Friday and on top of my intolerable impossible job that takes up twenty hours of my day I now have to spend every remaining waking moment studying, trying to cram insane amounts of detailed factoids about every neurological process, physiological and pathological into my already over-stuffed brain. I seriously feel ill, like I might vomit. Or have a seizure. Or some sort of nervous collapse. Seriously.

Maybe part of my nausea is from all the drinking I did last night. Yes, for some inexplicable reason I tarted myself up (I was a sexy tango dancer, complete with fishnets, heels, thigh-grazing dress and real roses bound in my slicked back Evita Peron hair) and went out and had such a fabulous time! I mean, yes, I drank too much (only four or five, but all different spirits - wine, beer, vodka, tequila, oh my) and stayed out too late (the trap of turning the clocks back!!!) did a few mortifying things (didn't take my clothes off, didn't dance on the bar...the rest is not entirely printable), hit on a very cute Newcastle beer rep (an actor with piercing green eyes who is probably about 12 and will never call me), and hung out at my local watering hole with some good friends I hadn't seen in a while - Derek, his crazy roommate (with whom I had an existential relationship conversation) and James, sweet James whom I LOVE and miss dearly since he was fired from work (long and crazy story, unreal...). Turns out James and his fiancee are going to be in Buenos Aires at the same time I am!!!!!!! Insane...

Why do I love Hallowe'en so much? It's one of my favourite holidays, I never miss it, always doing whatever I can to make sure I'm in costume and ready to party (last year I drove all the way back from Chicoutimi just to go out that night). Is it the creative part? The acting part? Letting my artistic side out? Or is it the disguise, the opportunity to be in someone else's skin for a night, or to show a different facet of your own self that generally remains under tight wraps? I don't know for certain, but I do know I love to pretend to be something I'm not; I've taken to straightening my hair again (partly out of necessity due to the cold weather and need for a blow dry to avoid pneumonia, partly due to the fact that it looks so damn hot, sophisticated, sexy, better than my "real" hair, partly because EVERY North American woman worth her fashion and beauty salt does it), I do everything in my power to look and seem anything but a neurologist, from the way I dress to the way I speak and act - most people would think I was a designer or in advertising - I even got entertainment lawyer recently...maybe that would have been a better career pick, who knows? I guess the bottom line is that maybe I really don't know myself that well? Or maybe I do and I just don't particularly like what I see?

I'm certainly not living any sort of a life at all right now, let alone THE life I want to be living: I'm broke, exhausted, overworked, doing a job I mostly hate, without really close friends whom I see regularly (Chris is in San Diego and is moving to Boulder; Beth lives in Brooklyn and has her own crises going on right now; Rebecca lives allllll the way on the East Side and is basically programmed every weekend and most evenings as far back as June; all of my other close friends are back in Montreal and Toronto or San Fran), eternally single and dating THE worst possible men for me, or rather man for me (it seems I have been dating the same guy over and over and over and over again in slightly different guises - some tall, some short, some blonde, some brunette, some blue-eyed, some hazeled, but alllllllllllllllllll exactly the same: selfish, non-commital, and not remotely interested in me for more than 5 minutes). It's utterly depressing.
And I see no sign of it changing.
Changing to what...?
Marriage?
Children?
A house in the suburbs?
I don't really want any of those things, now, do I?

Do I?

I really don't fucking know. And as I said to my boss recently, during a very painful and delicate meeting that was ostensibly about my new book chapter, but degenerated into talk of "So, how are you enjoying your  fellowship? You made the right decision, right? I mean, I know you struggled with it initially..." to which I replied: "No, I don't know. I mean, yes, some days I do, some days I don't. The thing is, I don't really know what I want to be when I grow up. I don't know how to reconcile serving humanity and honoring my profession while being a happy person...I haven't quite worked that out, yet."
And it is a constant struggle. And I don't have the answers. And I feel like time is running out. I'll be 35 next month, that magic, fabulous number: old, infertile, middle aged, cougar city, mid-thirties, birth defects, fertility drugs, greater chance of getting struck by lightening than getting married...I can't wait.
I see my friends and their married babied lives, and part of me has pangs of jealousy and part of me heaves an enormous sigh of relief "Thank fucking GOD that's not me...I would kill myself if I were saddled with a baby..."
I mean, I am absolutely not ready to "settle down" and have children. I should be. I want to be. Biologically speaking I kinda have to be. But I'm not. I am so far away from wanting that I just don't know how to even get on the right road. I feel 17 inside; "seventeen-year-olds with scalpels" as Callie says about Meredith on Grey's Anatomy (my touchstone for everything ;) in trying to justify why she might be a little dysfunctional when it comes to relationships, the translation being that because we have gone from school to school to training to premed to med to residency endlessly, relentlessly, we haven't ever really had the chance to "grow up" because we've never had the chance to really be kids - go out, drink, be naughty, cut class, not study, fail exams...I NEVER ever in my life have not studied my guts out for something (and this week will not be my trial run of "being bad" don't worry...), and doubt I ever will; I just don't have it in me. I also don't seem to have insight, skills or the relationship/happiness gene that allows me to be in a normal, healthy, fulfilling, mutual, respectful, loving adult relationship. I'm still playing catch-up from highschool, from not dating, from never being asked to dance at school dances, from never having a boyfriend until I was 27, from waiting forever to lose my virginity only to get it over with with a complete asshole who cheated on me the next day and never spoke to me again, from choosing so badly that that first boyfriend turned out to be not only terminally cruel to me but also gay, from not knowing how to date, how not to want something so badly, how not to call, how to wait and be patient, how to date five guys at once and not give a shit because I was so popular and pretty and carefree...Yeah, right...

And so the process of growing up, or attempting to grow up goes. Slowly, painfully, in fits and spurts and stuttering halts, through trial and (hopefully not too much) error and alcohol. Yet despite being so advanced, so precocious, so girl-genuis in so many, many, many ways (and modest to boot), it seems I am stuck in remedial special ed in all the life lessons I need to learn: 1) How to be happy 2) How to find a great job I like that won't kill me 3) How to find someone decent to date 4) How to make and save some money 5) Where to live 6) How to have a family before I am old and gray (good genes and fair hair have delayed the onset of that, thank god).

Maybe there is some sort of special school I could attend (lord knows I'm good at school!)? Maybe there's an intensive training course? A guru? A "life coach"? A shrink? I've tried most of all of the above, to no avail, and I am just so tired of learning the same painful lessons over and over and over and over.

Comments

[brownamazon]

So, tonight is Halloween, and I'm still at fucking work (yes, check the time). And I have to leave here in a few minutes and see a play and write up the review when I get home because they need it "by 8 a.m. tomorrow". So have fun for me! However, I do get to swan around the Governor General's performing arts awards on Saturday night.
Oh, and darling--everybody knows that fashion mavens worth their salt don't straighten their hair. They chop it all off ;)

[brainygirl]

Hey, we don't all have your bone structure - me with no hair is a really bad sight, trust me!

;)

p.s. 18:30 and still at work is a GOOD day for me!!!!!!!!! No matter, in five days I will be in BUENOS AIRES!!!!