F.

I was on call at the other campus starting on Friday. Today was the first day it hasn’t rained in what seems like weeks. It was nice and clear and I was stuck inside the entire day, because the phone that is used to contact the on-call chaplain doesn’t work outside the building, but I still enjoyed looking out the window at the blue sky.

It was a quiet evening last night, greatly aided by the fact that I didn’t do any of the rounding we’re supposed to do. Am I going to become one of those chaplains who sits in the office eating doughnuts instead of seeing patients? I was forced to see two patients today, and felt somewhat joyful after seeing one of them, a young woman with an eating disorder. We talked for quite a while.

Tom and I were thinking of going to another movie next weekend, but I decided I can’t, because I have to do palliative care reading, and write my end-of-unit self-evaluation, and prepare for my mid-year consultation, not to mention other assigned reading that is piling up, and some reading I was going to do of my own accord to better understand the group dynamics model one of our supervisors favors.

I was also going to go to the Thomas House potluck tomorrow evening for the first time in months, and then decided not to do that, either, for the same reasons, or so I thought. Then I realized it’s because going somewhere with someone other than F. doesn’t sound fun. He and I used to go to the potlucks together. I can still clearly remember the last one we attended and something he said while he was there. Nothing major, just something that sticks in my mind, in the voice I’ll probably never hear again.

Nor will I ever do anything with him again (unless a whole set of small miracles occurs), and I guess I can’t not ever go anywhere again because I don’t get to go with him, so I called Tom back and said I would like to go to the movie, and I might even go to the potluck. Though I really do have palliative care reading to do.