People and their sides of wonder

I finished reading Stasiland, and I realised - or re-realised - just how much I love stories. 

I mean, you know this. You know this because you absolutely must know by now how much I love reading. I am always reading. I always have a book on my bedside table, or in my bag - I'm always in the middle of some book or another. The more stressful or busy life gets, the more I need a book. I may read in smaller increments, but I solemnly swear - I am always reading. The gap between me finishing one book and starting another is v-e-r-y narrow.

So this realisation, you may think it's a bit... well, glaringly obvious, le duh. 

But this is different. Nothing's changed, I've just evolved a little - a little in understanding about myself. Sort of.

I usually gravitate towards the fictional. I love make believe. I love it in something as outrageous as fantasy, the occasional drip in sci-fi, but I also love it in the slightly more believable, still romanticised, high school or family dramas. Even closer to reality, give me a bit of historical fiction. Or just shock me with something terrifying, something disturbing, something mysterious. I'll take it all.

There are only two things that bother me with fiction. One is, well, it's fiction. It's not real. The other, while closely related, is still a little distinct: it's not real, and it'll never be mine. No pirates or witches, no struggle through war or some other colossal disaster, no tragic romance or numbered days with impending doom - I know it's sort of terrible to wish these things, but I can't help it. When I've read it in a book, it's always romantic. It's an experience, woven together in such pretty words that I can't help wish they were describing me.

And that's just fiction.

So you can imagine how I feel when I read someone's epic story, and it's real. Like Stasiland. Oh how my heart broke for Miriam, who went and asked them every day how Charlie could have hung himself in those sparse cells she'd experienced herself, and they gave her different answers every time. And Frau Paul, who sacrificed seeing her baby boy to save a guy she barely knew in the West. She so was so brave and so selfless, and you wish that she was just that bit selfish enough to take the bait, because it's her courage and selflessness that makes her deserving of the right to see her kid.

People are so extraordinary.

This is what I've realised. I know it doesn't sound like much, it's just... It's just one of those things, those ideas or thoughts that are blasé, you just take them for granted, and then, one day, bam: it hits you. It touches your soul.

Look at that. That's Hitler with a little girl. Hitler. Do I need to iterate what this guy is responsible for? And yet, when Star showed me this, it came with a little tumblr discussion that pointed out that yes, he did many horrible things (I don't have words), but we cannot just simplify him as this creature of super-evil in order to comprehend what he did. The fact is, despite all that he did, Hitler was still a man, and there must have been a great many other things going on in that little head of his, not all of them psychotic, that we will never know.

Stalin, man. Putting aside the bigger picture of his endless cruelty, this is a guy who said "He can't even shoot straight" when his son tried to kill himself.   But when his wife died, according to Wiki (and a certain historian), he is quoted as saying: "This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity." He threw himself in her open grave at her funeral, and had to be dragged out. His gun was taken away from him because his comrades were worried about the extent of his grief.

(I mean, let's be real, grieving or not, I would never think a gun was safe in Stalin's hands.)

The point is, would you ever associate this tragic lover with the heartless dictator?

I'm not writing this to elicit sympathy for the nastier figures of history. I'm just astounded.

Isn't it just so amazing how absolutely complex people are? These gallimaufries of stupidity, courage, malice, selflessness, imagination, ridiculousness, contradiction, empathy... I mean, it goes on and on and on and we could never, ever get to the bottom of it.

And it is the stories of people that I am in love with.

And I think this is why I've found my niche in paramedics/nursing. It may sound unrelated, but really, this course has given me the best platform to discover people. Really, since I started, I've wondered why I chose the course. Yes, I like the idea of paramedics and nursing - helping people, taking care of them, etc - but there are other ways to do this, right? I mean, all careers end up doing this in some way or another ('cept politicians?). We all contribute to society, so we will all inadvertently helping each other.

Aside from that, I've never been interested in medicine or health. I've never been fascinated by biology, or anatomy and physiology. I've always been iffy about needles and blood and all that.

And I've always been a humanities kid. I love my reading (did I mention that?), my writing, my history, studying issues and discussing ideas. One does go into my course looking for this stuff.

But over the past year and a bit, within uni but mainly through a series of placements, I have made the acquaintance of so many different people, and... it fills me up. It opens my mind, it changes me, it moves me, it gives me new perspectives - I can't explain it. I just love the experience.

It's not that I only pick up amazing people in the ambulance, or that only quirky people come into hospital. These people are everyday people. Sometimes it's their medical story - the dog bite, the spider bite, the rare genetic condition - the one with the unlucky lottery of a jumble of rare conditions, for that matter. The guy with the apple piece up his butt (best ice-breaker ever).

Sometimes it's their personal stories.

There was the relatively elderly gentleman who spoke to me about his experience of moving from England to Australia, how he and his family may not have explored much in the former, but were prone to just packing, selling, upping and travelling around the latter in a caravan, settling in whatever state or territory took their fancy, every now and again. How  just once, he and his wife wanted to do it by themselves, so when all the kids left the nest, they did. How soon after they completed the dream, they found out she had lung cancer - though she'd never smoked in her life - and suddenly she was gone. It had been a few years, but he still had tears in his eyes as he told me, lying in bed in the recovery room.

There were a few travellers - the guy from Germany, another who travelled constantly on business... Contrary to what I thought, that you'd be left in a perpetual state of longing to take flight again, he said that no matter how wonderful it was to see the world, he never stopped wishing that he could just settle down, for a bit, and just be with his family.

And sometimes it's just who they, in general. The 42-year-old woman who ended up in the same room as another 42-year-old woman and they ended up becoming soul sisters. When one was discharged before the other, they literally wept because of the separation. In the following days, the one that was discharged would call daily to catch up - she actually wished she was back in hospital to be with the other. The one that stayed, she was my patient, and I adored her. She was in because one of her implants, following a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy, became infected with cellulitis. But despite over 15 days in hospital, and many more to come; despite the constant IV medications, the drain tubes, the pain, the loneliness, the discomfort, she was such a bright spark. We talked about her daughters, my sisters, her conditions, my understanding, and just anything, and I've decided I want to be like her when I'm 42. (Divorced, 2 kids, happy). (Probably not a healthy ambition). (Whatever).

I remember my clinical educator, at my second aged-care placement last year, telling us about how when she went up to the Northern Territory for missionary work, there were these Indigenous people who, even though they'd be given housing, preferred to sleep outside at night. Just like that. In the bush. How beautiful is that? I don't think it'd be as breathtaking and liberating in the middle of suburbia, but up there, where it's remote, with the starry night sky as your blanket... They'd occasionally have an issue with people being run over, but I prefer to look at the side of wonder.

There is so much to say about people. Everyone seems amazing one way or another. They always seem to have something to share. This quote, from Death in The Book Thief: I am haunted by humans.

I imagine that when people see that as my status/whatever it's called on WhatsApp, they probably roll their eyes and see it as a wannabe attempt at depth. It's just that those words really hit home for me. When I hear peoples' stories, they stick, in my head, and I ruminate over them, I ponder them, I picture them playing out before me. I collect them.

And I know this is cliché, and I know you probably saw this coming, but I wonder: what is my story?

I feel like all I have to relate belongs to someone else. I feel like I'm always the prop in a production starring someone else, like a rock. Or a tree. It's not really that I want centre stage. I don't really do well in the spotlight. But what I would like is a story worth sharing, something I own even if no one hears it in the end. It's like... It's like life is this gift, this... Notebook. (God, how often I've been given stationary, and I love it, but I never know what to put in it). And you have to write something worthwhile in that notebook, make the words count on the page, even if no one ever reads it. 

So I want mine to be a good one. I know what I want. I have these dreams, these ideas. The problem with this metaphor - that you are the star of your own show - is that you don't get to write everyone's lines, things don't happen in accordance with the script you devised. I don't know how this is going to unfold. I don't know what the point of this post is. I just had some thoughts I wanted to get out. 

Peace in,
Laila

Never grow up

I've done four placements for paramedics, and I loved them, but I gotta say that the one-week nursing placement I had last week was the one that really hit me.

Aged care. 

I've always been uncomfortable around nudity and stuff, but... now... I've seen it all. I helped with the bathing, the toileting, the changing, the moving, the feeding. It was exhausting stuff, and to be honest, I don't think I did all that much. I was, technically, just assisting. I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to be the actual one-woman-show on a daily basis. Or two-woman-show. For like, 15 dependant elderly residents.

And I discovered that I'm pretty capable. I didn't cringe or giggle stupidly. I did whatever I was told, because... I donno. It had to be done. It can't be helped, and there was nothing funny about it.

[INTERMISSION:

Okay, so there are some things funny about it - i.e. my favourite resident, Barry. 

Day one, he was hitting on all the female assistants in the vicinity. My mentor went to get him up in the morning, and she was trying to pull the sheets up, but he kept clinging on. She wrestled it off him, and she tried to lift his arm, but he refused.

"I'm holding down my stomach," he insisted.

"Why?" my mentor asked, exasperated.

"So I can look slim for you," he replied.

Smooth, huh?

Day two, he was in a bad kind of mood. He started threatening my mentor because he felt they weren't respecting him.

"I'd love to be your husband for a day or two," he said to her.

"Why, Barry? You were just threatening me, why would you be my husband?" my mentor joked.

"I'd clock you  one every morning," he retorted. When my mentors try to stifle their laughter, he continued. "Women like to be noticed."

Day three, I was allocated to another sector for the night shift. However, we went over to his area because we needed to empty the linen. When we walked past his room, I couldn't help but peek in, and he was awake, and before I could escape, he called me in.

"What's going on out there?" he asked.

"Oh, we're just emptying the soiled linen," I replied.

"Why wasn't I informed?" He had that self-entitled, imperious tone.

"Oh - it's not that big a deal. Just cleaning up, you know?"

"Oh, you would think so, wouldn't you?" he said, peering down at me. I mean, he was below me on the bed, but he has that Dumbledore-peering-over-his-half-moon-spectacles thing going on, although he was more conspiratorial as opposed to wise. 

"Well, I'll have you know..." he started, and went on to describe the various weaponry he apparently had around his room. Apparently he had a pistol under the covers, and the table legs weren't really as they seemed. He asserted that he was prepared to leave the room and shoot everyone in the shins, as necessary... something something... Then he started talking about the girl he loved, Phyllis, who apparently didn't love him back, and his father always said that 'you should never make a woman uncomfortable - if she doesn't want you, that's it'... something something... He was always a 'man of the land, not the administration', because the administration was always trying to change the world according to their beliefs and religion and political ideas, but men of the land just lived... and so  on, so forth.

These are just snippets, really - Barry and I had many conversations, most of them not really making sense, but I donno; I felt like there was some kind of wisdom in there. He's a cool guy. I love him.]

But most of it wasn't funny because... because. Because it's hard to see people who have a great number of years behind them, who must have grand stories, who should appear regal, who ought to be treated with a kind of a reverence... It's hard to see these people so diminished, mentally. 

That was really what confronted me - I can't see people losing their minds.

It scares me and it makes me sick, and it's... so hard to deal with. I don't even know how to explain it. I used to hate aging primarily because I like being a kid. Now I'm just scared of aging because I don't want to end up like that.

My mentor implied that one of the ladies could hold a conversation, so I seized an opportunity to feed her. So I started chatting, asking her some questions - do you have children, grandchildren, are you from around here?

We got to the point where she said she was born in England, but married an Aussie bloke, and she considered herself Aussie. I said, awesome, so when did this happen? As in, when did she come out here?

And then she got teary.

"I don't know, I can't remember! It's too long!" she cried out. And my heart broke a little. Ow.

She's not the only one. I mean, they're all (mostly) sweet, but it's just so hard because theoretically you should speak to them with deference, right? But you end up having to be patronising, and you can't help it. It's so hard. 

So no aged care for me. And I'm definitely not growing up.

Also, I had my first personal encounter with a corpse. On my last night, this guy had just been moved back from hospital into palliative care. They thought he had a couple of days at least. The nurse in charge went on break for 10 minutes, and when she came back, he was gone. I had to help wash him.

They go downhill so fast.

When I left, one of my other favourite residents was in the midst of a fever. She was stripped down, sweating and shuddering, and she kept calling out to God. It was awful. And I had to leave right there. I still don't know what happened to her.

Aged care is not for me. I was told that in order to deal, I shouldn't take things personally, but I can't not take it personally. I joined this profession because I like things personal. It feels so cold being detached. I can't do it.

Yep. 

Paramedic placements, on the other hand, have been a lot less overwhelming. I've had four one day shifts across the semester. Nothing particularly dramatic, so no good stories to share, but I do love 'em. I can't be bothered walking down memory lane for that stuff, so maybe I'll just write about my next one :)

Ramadan mubarak to all my Muslims out there ♥

Peace in,

Laila