Why are we still here?
Why are we still hiding our deepest and saddest emotions?
Why do we still we fight, despite getting weakened down to our cores?
Why do we still get up despite getting swallowed by our nightmares?
Why do we still go on, yet we ourselves are drowned by our ocean of sorrows?
I don’t know the answer. Because I myself don’t know the real reason why we still fight, why we still hold on.
They said residency can either make you, or break you. It can either bring out the worst in you, or the best in you.
But why does everytime I look in the mirror, all I can see is someone shattered. And when I talk to her, she just cries. She just breaks down. It’s as if everything is falling down on her. It’s as if she doesn’t know herself anymore. A warrior she once been, now she’s someone who can’t even utter her own name.
I look at her again. All I can see is her soul. I can feel her pain. I can feel every tear falling down from her eyes, as if every tear drop cuts in me. She says something, but all I can hear is the deafening silence that I can’t take it. I see her eyes. I can see her wounded by something that I can’t envision.
She takes my hand. But as I hold it, I fall into an abyss. I see her visions, her dreams, her heartaches. I see people, cheering her up. I see people breaking her. But I can’t do anything. I was paralyzed. I want to help her. I want to hug her, console her. But then darkness covers me. And then I hear her sobs. I feel it so hard that I myself don’t know what to do anymore. I can hear her cries. It breaks me. I can see her heart, and I felt the pain, the gloom, the anguish. I can’t take it! I am suffocating! I want to get out of this whatever place it is. I cried for help, but no one cares. I see different people. I begged for their help, yet no one listens, no one cares. Or nobody hears me.
I fall again. Deep, so deep that I am now drowning. I am drowning in her tears. I try to swim, but the waters seem to be getting higher. I see light. I see her again. Calling my name, but I can’t reach her. And then everything went blank.
I woke up. Alone. My pillows wet with my tears.
And then I got up. It’s 6am. I have to go to the hospital, because my patients need me. And I have a lot of things to do as the senior of my team. I have to get up. It’s another day.
-GCDGPagaduan, RN, MD
27 August 2022
