Page 24 of We Were Something
Not that I ever truly wanted to compete. I just enjoyed the challenge.
But for whatever reason, keeping pace on the treadmill just wasn’t doing it for me today, and I found myself drifting over to the rowing machines.
We used to kill ourselves on these back at Yale. The physical nature of sailing is probably underrated when thinking about the athleticism of college sports, but we were pushed just as intensely and aggressively and trained just as rigorously as those who received nationwide acclaim for their athletic feats: football players, basketball players, hockey players. We all jockeyed for the same machines in the D1 workout facilities on campus.
I’m sure my old running buddies would destroy me for choosing to use indoor machines rather than hit the smooth concrete of The Strand, with the shore to one side of me and the homes of Hermosa Beach’s elite families on the other, especially when I used to run rain or shine in Seattle.
I can’t fully explain why I choose a gym over the outdoors, but Idoknow I can zone out in a different way when I stare at the numbers on a treadmill rather than during a leisurely jog along the oceanfront.
Though that hasn’t been the case recently, and it’s the reason I’ve been opting to use this machine I haven’t used for the better part of a decade. Even so, it doesn’t seem to matter what exercise I choose, my mind drifting around, bouncing from frustrating topic to unwanted memory, choosing to ignore my intentional attempts at distraction.
I shake my head and try to move faster, the distant sound of the fan on the machine getting loud enough to hear over my headphones as I pump harder.
Even just being here and needing to distract myself in the first place feels foreign. It’s been years since I’ve really even beenawareof the opposite sex, let alone so distracted I’m heading to the gym to try to exhaust myself so I can go straight home and fall asleep without a wandering mind.
I can’t remember it ever being like this with Jen, even during the early parts of our relationship, this kind of adolescent distraction and flirtatious giddiness that overtakes me when Paige is near.
Things with Jen were always…proper. Simple. Straightforward.
Maybe that sounds strange, but it didn’t feel strange to me. Not at the time, at least.
As a doctor, I’ve spent my entire life paying attention to what I need to know in order to be exceptional at my work. I’ve spent years practicing, learning, researching, and studying. I’ve been at the forefront of developing new techniques that minimize recovery times for adolescents in the hospital. I’ve participated in some of the most distinguished exploratory research to come out of pediatrics since the development of treatments for childhood leukemia.
I’m sure there are a few people in my field who think I’mluckyto have gotten this far this fast in my career. But there’s a famous quote that says luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, and I’ve been intentional about setting myself up for success on both of those accounts: rigorous preparation and intentional connection.
Though I also have a third factor I don’t think many of my colleagues pay as much attention to.
My gut.
A deep-seated intuition.
It guides me. Constantly. Makes me the exceptional doctor who can face a crisis in the operating room and know instinctively which risks I’m willing to take to solve the problem with the best possible outcome for the patient lying exposed and vulnerable on my table.
It tells me which research projects and grants I want to seek out, which partnerships with other physicians I want to take on, and which ones I want to avoid wholeheartedly.
And it’s that same gut reaction and guidance that told me Jen was the right one for me. The right woman to spend my life with.
We had plenty in common, and we got along well, always supported each other’s dreams.
Until one day, we didn’t anymore.
At some point, those dreams seemed to veer off our shared path, going in opposite directions, our commonalities becoming few and far between. I’m not sure if it was time that separated us—we were so young when we first started dating that it would be ignorant of me to assume neither of us changed. Or maybe, instead of time, it was space.
The space that became much more pronounced as we each found other things to do with our time rather than spend that time with each other.
For me, it was work. Always work. The thing I had decided would be what I dedicated my entire life to.
For her, it was time with girlfriends. Girlfriends who were having babies and living the life she wanted for herself while I was tucked away in an operating room somewhere or poring over journals trying to figure out a way to give a toddler even just a few more months of life with her family.
I realize reflecting on it like that makes me sound like a martyr. Like I’m the hero who was dedicated to life-saving care and my ex was the bitter shrew who could only focus on her selfish needs.
In my less desirable days, I’ve given in to those thoughts. Painted her as the horrible one, the only one with faults, the only oneat faultfor the disintegration of our marriage.
But I know the truth.
The truth is that we were both to blame.
Her for her stubbornness and me for mine.
