walls

i've been very antsy lately. i feel like i should be very focused, since it's exams week and tomorrow is our hardest (neuro) exam, but instead i've been an emotional space cadet. i keep feeling like i just need to get into my car and drive somewhere, and in the last week, i've actually done that a few times. fortunately, in davis, it takes about 3 minutes before you are in the middle of the countryside. i drive around for an hour looking at the fields and occasional country homes and feel better for a little while.

what i'm really itching to do is to get out into the desert and burningman. like right now. to be on that hard dusty ground at night, with warm air full of energy around me, colorful lights in the distance everywhere, incredible art sculptures glowing in every direction, and that huge amazing feeling of freedom and space. i think the realization that burningman takes place in the week leading up to my finals this year, and that i would have to be a pathology/pharmacology/dermatology/hematology/oncology superhero to go, really got me unsettled. i feel very very very trapped. i love what i'm learning, but i've entered a world built by type-a personalities that are always trying to do more and better. and though i like playing that game most of the time, that kind of lifestyle builds up tangled bundles of energy within me that i need to let unravel. usually, if done often enough, a hike or a day at the ocean will do that for me. going to burningman, however, made me realize that it only does so to my surface. in the desert out there, there is an incredible feeling of freedom that to me comes combined with feelings of safety. (a physical safety, as well as an emotional, spiritual and psychological safety). i let my guard down completely and just become me. that experience, combined with the fact that i am still out in the wilderness, constantly hit by the harsh winds, sandstorms, hot sun, and cold mornings leaves me absolutely raw. i'm stripped to my core, without all this complicated crap that i build around me to be who i am. med school, with its unreleting demands, is very good at retangling me in all that mental, physical and psychological crap. i start seeing my life as if it were in a tunnel, with only absolute directions to go to and with long-term consequences to every turn i make. and that makes me ache to get back out on the flat empty ground of the playa, and to just breathe for a little while, and wander in any direction i choose.

but for now, it's back to studying the sensory pathways of the brain...