Uncertainty Principle

In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on.

~Robert Frost

A few weeks ago, a young man in the second year class chose to end his life. I knew him in passing, as I was part of that class until the Lyme woke up and knocked me down in the spring. I will never know what drove him to that brink, to the realization that it was better to end life rather than enduring it. Our demons are uniquely our own.

Today, one of the organizers of our clinical skills course passed away suddenly due to a heart attack. I think she was just 32. In lab I listened to how she and her husband walked their dog together every evening, and thought to myself of how those nows spent in her company may give her husband comfort in the future.

We all take for granted the plans we have laid out. However, life is finite--we were all born, and at some point, we are all going to die. In the meantime, all we have is this moment, this now, that we can do something with.

Given my never ending war with Lyme, I feel that I have a decent inroad on using my nows to the utmost of my ability. The events of the past few weeks have hammered this lesson into my mind even more. All we have is our collection of nows. It may seem easier to turn your head when dealing with something aggravating or unpleasant, but the bottom line is that this time is all we have. And if we choose not to experience it, not to live it, we are choosing oblivion.

Despite migraines, nausea, and overall high levels of nastiness, I rode three times last week. I am preparing for the 4 part Celebration of Learning on Friday with a clear sense of choice: I chose to live within the moments given to me. These endless stacks of papers, this coffee cup, that soft nose of my lamb: that is my life. And I will choose to continue living in my given moments until death and I meet.