Epiphanies in Isolation

Today I got some of what should have been the best news of my short life. I have been accepted to be a member of a wonderful medical school's class for next fall. When I saw the email however I didn't feel anyone of the things I thought I would. Absent were elation, relief, and pride instead I found myself feeling wholly unmoved. My first reaction was to blame it on the rather uninspiring email that it came in. No school seal or congratulatory special fonts. Just a normal email saying that I had to pay some money to keep my seat. But it quickly became obvious that my stoicism was sourced from something much deeper within me.

My first instinct was to celebrate and share the news with all my friends. Immediately following that instinct came the blunt realization that I had by and large burned all the bridges with anyone with whom I might be able to share this. In the process of arriving at my goal I had lost ties to most of the people whom could have shared in my happiness. I wouldn't get a high five from a best friend. There would be no congratulatory bar rush. No kiss on the cheek and sparkle in the eye of a loved one. There was just me and this banal email. All of a sudden I felt the full distance of the social environment I had created. 

The next problem arose from the reaction of acquaintances and really how I had come to frame the situation myself. "Of course you got in" was a popular phrase. I know this is meant as a compliment but it undermines all my hard work that has gotten me to this point. In some ways this is a bastardization of the fundamental attribution error. People seeing in me some kind of inherent genius or ability that has predestined my success. While flattering it not only diminishes the weight of my efforts but also places unduly high expectations on everything I do. "Of course you got in" echoes in my ears as "when are you going to do something really great?" The more things that become expected of me, the less things I can do to prove myself and less fulfilling everything I do becomes. This problem is more alarming because it is reflected in how I have grown to see things myself.

I know this sounds extremely whinny so let me take a moment to thank and acknowledge the loving support I have received. I got a card and some chocolate from two angels which meant more to me than they could ever know. Despite everything I've down to isolate myself from everyone there are still lose people that dare to reach beyond my walls.

This epiphany has left me with a lot of unanswered questions about my future. I absolutely still want to be a doctor. I want it more than ever. The question now is how I'm going to frame it within all the more important and larger questions that have come to interrupt my singular focus of becoming a doctor. There will no joy in being the world's greatest doctor if I go home to an empty house and am constantly devaluing my own accomplishments because of unreasonably high expectations.

The Recitation

Where do you find angels now-a-days? I know friends and family that have been looking for them for ages and never found them. This weekend however I meet two. God knows I wasn't looking for them.

The first was on Teaneck Road by a closed dairy queen at about 12:45 am. It was raining so hard and I had been walking alone for so long that neither my clothes nor my glasses were serving their purpose. I was drenched and not quite blind. I was also dreadfully cold. The divine meeting happened quickly and without any procession. I saw the angel sitting about the peak of the dairy queen roof. He/she greeted me with a wave and leaped, his/her great wings slowing his/her decent, to the dead leaf strewn side walk in front of me. A tentacle of light emerged from the angel's navel and enraptured my head. I struggled desperately but as soon as I began struggling I realized I was no longer in Teaneck. Well that is not quite true. More correctly to say I was no longer only in Teaneck. I was in three places at once. I was in Teaneck but also in a great desert and a quite isolated Caribbean beach. The bright scorching of the day melted into the raining misery of Teaneck and the tranquil star lite night of the beach. Like three oil painting whose canvases turned to water and began to flow and mingle with one another without losing any distinction, I was seeing all and each. In the desert I saw great migrations of people with their whole lives on their backs pressing west buffeted by sun and sand. In the beach I saw a single woman bathing in the star light. The waves rolling over carelessly, unappreciative of the beauty they held. It lasted perhaps a second, likely less. Then it was over. All that remained was the dairy queen and the dirty wet sidewalk. I was exhausted. I fell over and vomited. With 40 mins of walking behind me alone in the dark and rain and another 40 mins ahead of me I concurred with my body that it was time for a break.

I might the second angel while listening to Dvorak in a middle school concert hall. With two free tickets to the Bergen County Philharmonic and with no one to go with me I sat quietly suspended between a state of complacency and melancholy as they orchestra rounded out the fourth movement of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. The tarantella rhythms carrying all the weight of their poisonous origins. Then a girl took the stage. Younger than I and still engaged in her education at Julliard she seated herself and her cello at center stage with a gaze of otherworldly focus. It was time for Dvorak's concerto and she was to be the soloist. The first stroke of her bow was deep and resounded in my chest awakening the depths of my soul, unbinding the chains that I'd so meticulously placed. Elation and freedom followed the vibrations of her strings and the caresses of her hands on the cello's neck. Her music was like calligraphy written in the air painting the auditorium with chords of intent and grace. I had no hallucinations or visions or what have you but I was equally as transported as I was the night before. Carried on waves of music to wonders that lasted only moments at a time. The music of the spheres was opening around us.

It was a good weekend for Angels, but I do enjoy the company of some much more than others.