Beetles

Mid-February brought another bout of really missing F. and having to talk myself out of calling him to say, “Let’s fix this! Let’s go to counseling!” I was thinking for the hundredth time that what made the ending so hard was how sudden it was. I reflected that, for that matter, the beginning was also quite sudden. And that the sudden beginning was according to his plan, and so was the abrupt ending! In fact—it finally dawned on me—the whole thing went according to his template for how a romance should begin and proceed, and later according to his script for what a proper revolutionary does when he realizes he is being victimized by a callous perpetrator.

In some ways, I did not exist in that relationship at all! I was merely the other party that is required for him to act out his patterns yet again (while, of course, I acted out mine). So: a breakthrough. Why on earth would I want to take up a role like that again? Seeing that didn’t make me angry at him and nor did it make me sadder than I already was, but it was rather poignant to contemplate us humans being beetling around our familiar tracks over and over.

At work, for the first time I encountered a patient in obvious conflict with his significant other. We had a couple of presentations on mediating conflicts during CPE, but I was unable to dredge up any useful details in the moment. Also, it wasn’t like there was one particular conflict, but just an alarming intensity of bickering and anger right in the hospital room, so I went with my intuition. I said, “Forgive me for asking a really nosy question—you can ask me to leave the room if you want—but how was your relationship three weeks ago?” That was before the patient’s serious diagnosis, and the answer was that it was the same as I was now seeing. That is, the ill will wasn’t due to the stress of the new diagnosis.

So I spoke with both parties together, and then asked if I could speak with each alone. I must say my sympathies were distinctly with the patient, but I listened as openly as I could and confirmed that each has someone to talk to other than his or her partner, which seemed important. A few days later, I saw in the chart note of another chaplain that the patient and the patient’s spouse felt these conversations had been helpful.

Valentine’s Day would have been F.’s and my third anniversary, though reaching this milestone would have been more likely if we’d made it to our second anniversary, which we didn’t. I thought about him, of course, but didn’t have to battle the desire to contact him, which I attribute to the aforementioned insight that we weren’t even in the same relationship. That evening, I kind of felt like texting “You alive?” but this idea was easily discarded. It was possible I might catch him in a friendly mood but much more likely that I would catch him in an angry mood. There’s no way to know, and once I remembered that, I also remembered that it would be far kinder just to let him be.

At County Hospital that week, I saw Clementine for the first time in ages. I was really happy to see her, but she hardly seemed to notice me. I felt a bit hurt, and I also got to thinking about how at various moments she had suggested that I might want to work with the palliative care team, or with prisoners, or with psych patients, or in the emergency room. I had told her I wanted to do all of that, but never heard anything more about any of it, and I started to brood about it a little.

School requires us to volunteer, and that’s why I’m volunteering at County Hospital, besides the fact that I have wanted to be there for years. However, it turns out that we’re supposed to volunteer outside our major area of interest, so, for instance, the person who wants to be a hospital chaplain is asked to volunteer not at a hospital. However, I can’t exactly leave there now. I like the place and I like the people and I appreciate that there are people. At my paying job, I’m almost always the only chaplain around. So I will be staying, but will also need to find an additional volunteer position. 

Clementine had mentioned that if I want to work with the palliative care team, it would be good if I could put in a whole day, but increasing my hours is out of the question at this point. After I brooded for a while about why none of those enticing possibilities had come to fruition, I told myself that it is only fair that the volunteers who can put in a lot of time should get the plum assignments, and that I would carry on cheerfully with whatever they ask me to do. And then I got an email from Clementine saying she would like to talk to me about my clinical assignments, which made me feel a lot better, though since I couldn’t increase my hours, there might not end up being any change.