choosing

Grey's Anatomy Season 6 Episode 11 - I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked

Cristina asked Meredith; "If you had to choose between the thing you love to do and the person you love, which would you choose?"

Case summary: An opera singer is admitted complaining of bronchitis.  Diagnosis: Pleural Mesothelioma (Cancer of the membrane lining the lungs and chest cavity)  Possible courses of action: Removal of affected pleura and/or pneumonectomy plus chemotherapy and radiation.

Patient's reply: "I sing, it's my entire life...I’m big.  Too big.  I don’t fit in airplane seats.  And, as Jeff is always telling me, my feelings don’t always fit the situation.  If my food is overcooked in a restaurant, I get enraged.  I want to kill the waiter.  But I don’t.  I politely ask him to take my meal back and bring it to me the way I asked for it.  I spend my days making myself smaller.  Acceptable.  And that’s okay.  Because at night, when I go onstage, I get to experience the world the way I feel it.  With indescribable rage.  And unbearable sadness.  And huge passion.  At night, onstage, I get to kill the waiter and dance on his grave.  And if I can’t do that, if all I have left is a life of making myself smaller, then I don’t want to live.”

The whole "Be Yourself" schtick has been peddled from here to Timbuktu in a gazillion books and movies.  They can present it in a dozen, different ways or in a hundred, different languages but I think that opera singer said it best.  The world tells you to be true to who you really are but what if your real SELF is not something the world finds "nice" or deems "acceptable" by the normal, social parameters?  Why does the world tell you to "Be Yourself"; but if that self does not fit into the mold, the world will try to break you and if you resist long enough, it rejects you like a broken cookie.

To the world: Stop contradicting yourself.  Stop forcing me into the mold.  Stop making me choose.  Stop insisting I make myself small.

chills every time

irony

It's a day where you are celebrated, supposedly.  Usually there's a party, gifts and well wishes.  The nightmare has experienced all three but has never found an instance in all 34 instances where this day lived up to what it's supposed to be.  It has always fallen flat or been one of the worst days of the year.  Sometimes it's my fault, sometimes, not.  Maybe it's an expectation thing again because we can't remember when was the last time we actually looked forward to this day.  We don't know why it has never been a GREAT day.  All we know it's always been bad or ok.  We've settled for ok.  In fact, with the past five years, we hoped and prayed for ok so much that we try to figuratively hide under a rock.  Think going into the shelter until the storm passes.  

It's just another day, it's just another day, it's just another day... 

nightmare trivia

1. I can survive being marooned on an island alone...as long as I have a never-ending supply of books and dvds plus a high speed Internet connection.  
2. I eat VEERRY slow...and I hate being rushed.
3. I lose weight during Christmas...and I don't exercise.
4. I go into lizard mode if left too long under the sun.
5. I am usually late because I hate waiting.
6. There are VERY few people that I consider to be REAL friends...
7. Even if I am now awake during the day, my brain still works best at night.
8. I used to be left-brained...
9. Never been in a relationship.
10. Crowds make me cranky.
11. Self-proclaimed snob.
12. At the last count, 90% of my guy friends are gay...
13. My body always wakes up 30 minutes to an hour before my brain does...
14. Sarcasm is the best answer to stupidity.
15. I made the decision to stop needing, wanting and trying for others' approval during my first year in college.
16. Dessert, soup, then the salad are my favorite courses in most meals.
17. I have been keeping a yearly journal of my doings since high school.
18. My brain recognizes only two states; black and white...most of the time.  
19. Equivocation is something that comes naturally.
20. I realized a couple of years ago that I am not one of those who can work in a job that they don't really like in order to have the money to do what they really want.
21. I do not make plans nor set goals for the future.
22. Trying everything once is necessary as long as one remembers that addiction is a luxury.
23. Given a choice, I'd rather take a boat over a plane.
24. I can taste smells.
25. I compartmentalize...
26. If you're going to do something bad, don't get caught.  If you get caught, man up.
27. I am allergic to the color pink.
28. Over analyzing is a hobby.
29. Organizing is a form of relaxation.
30. Living near water is a must
31. I always prefer the book over the movie.

32. I am very good at arguing the black and grey sides.

33.