30

As my time at UCSF draws closer, I become more anxious and more unfocused, though its ironic because all my efforts are to become more focused. I spend so much time fretting about what I need to do next—the “plan”—that I seldom get anything done. The image of being stuck in the mud in a truck comes to mind. I really need to relax. I swear I’ve forgotten how, and that, if anything, is what I really need to do before starting this program—full of voomph and vitality—show ‘em I haven’t forgotten how to live. The reason I stress so much is because I feel it necessary to compensate for all the experience and things that I don’t know and haven’t been exposed to. I cannot believe sometimes that I am going into the medical profession. Clearly this wasn’t meant to be. I wasn’t ever on this path. Nobody showed it to me, and yet, here I am—heading down this path that I didn’t think possible.

My mind is a jumble with thoughts of what I was supposed to do and rebelling from that type of functional fixedness. It’s time to look beyond the perceived form and perceived function of my life and really look at what I am all about. I swear I never saw it before. That’s why it’s so important that I relax and flow a little more. Focused flow, if you will. Previously, going to Mexico and traveling would be an ideal way of finding such a thing, but, no longer—not for me right now. I get so out into the universe that I forget how to walk when that happens. If I can just sit, though, and pay attention to what is around me without freaking out everytime I see something—“I must grasp this! I must own it I must own it now. Now I tell you, get in my brain you bastard!” Well, that just doesn’t look good or seem all that enlightened. It’s the juggernaut approach to self-actualization and I like to think that I am ever so slightly more sophisticated than that. Hell, I’m thirty aren’t I? Thirty. Hmmm. 30. I just need to look at the numbers because I just don’t identify them with me. I’m not 30! Not by a long shot. I guess it’s the government and all sorts of social institutions and, by default, my interactions with them that make me tell them that I am thirty makes me thirty, but I am not thirty by a long shot. No siree. Seriously. Fine, I’m a little shook up about it, but this is exactly what I was talking about earlier—I don’t recognize the form of 30 as me, nor its function. People see 30 as old and incapable and stricken with afflictions that make them less viable. I am viable, god damn it. I am viable. I am thinking and focused and more thoughtful than I ever have been in my life. Never mind the filling in of the abs with pudge—the abs are still there—just hiding.

It strikes me now how much I associate physical capability with mental ability. As if I am physically healthier, I can think and remember better—even interact in the world in a more enlightened manner. I suppose that makes sense to a certain degree and maybe I should pursue that—can’t hurt. I do think, however, it’s all rooted in my mind—this stress that I “MUST KNOW THIS NOW”. It’s overwhelming and not helping me at all. I need to relax, sit with, and be patient with the world, and perhaps, I will actually hear what is being said to me instead of it being drowned out by mindless self-chatter.

Yeah. Let’s try that.