I forgot the warm feelings I get when the sun kissed my skin ever since you came. Now here I am, sitting at your balcony waiting for you to come home late with your favorite mug at my side, looking forward to feel the warm touch of morning sun. Rummaging through every little corners of your place to find your trace because... rindu. I guess that’s what love did to you. It keeps you sane at days and make you lose your sanity at nights like this. You put Affection by Cigarettes After Sex on repeat over the speaker before you left home this morning and it left me with this soggy feeling the whole day and you have no idea about it.
I don’t know what made me think that it’s a good idea to date a doctor at the first place. You work in your own (crazy) timezone. You do things in your own timezone. At some point it made me think that I might as well date a ghost. You were never there. You were never there when I needed you the most. You can’t pick up my call since you were in the middle of carpal tunnel surgery on your patient that night. You can’t call me up when I was having lunch alone since you were in the middle of a consultation with your patient who needs a major lacerations. You sent me long good night/morning texts every night at the oddest hour; 4 in the morning because you knew you couldn’t make it the next day. You sent me a video of you having your meal of the day when I was in a deep sleep.
I gave up on my chicken skins ever since I met you just to stop you lecturing me what they did to my body. I’m used to a 45-minute late lunch and having to see you go in the middle of our dinner not to forget that bowl of your salad I had to finish that night. I have finally mastered the skill to cram two movies, that new sorbet place you love, the new seafood restaurant in one day before your on-calls. You made me into this new person with stomach made of steel with your stories from the hospital and that scrubs full of bloods I need to clean them up for you. I’ve learnt to appreciate time more when I had it less with you. Coming home to an actual empty home is the most loneliest thing I’ve encountered this year and it made me think how did you went through all this while?
I remember when we were in the middle of the movie and I caught cold from my wet shirts from running in the rain before and we left to get prescriptions medicines from you. I still can play all the details from that night when I had cramps and stuck in Pisco Bar’s toilet for at least half an hour. You rushed to the 24-hour convenience store next block to get my sanitary pads... God knows that was the most embarrassing thing ever happened to me. You drove me home while placing hot packs for me without any words because in that crucial time I had the potential to just kill anyone who pissed me off ― you said.
But that’s not your worst fear about me. One time you asked me, if I ever leave you what would the reason be? I said loyalty. We convinced each other most of the time but we knew that’s never enough. But more often that not, we knew better that our time is just not enough to pick fights over petty things and spoiled our time. And you know that I’ll be there when you came home after 6-day, 100-hour of not coming home. You know I can always get through that dinner date we set at 8 in the evening but you can’t make it because at 7:58, a patient in the ICU crashed and you will be there for at least two more hours doing paperwork.
At night when you have time in between night-shifts, you called me.
You knew I was hurting and learning. You knew I just need reassurance that we will get through this. You felt bad for putting me second/third/fourth... you get the point. You are more than aware that this is a very hard thing to get used to for someone who is a needy who needs an immediate gratification. My needs & wants, both physical and emotional, take a backseat to the patient(s) the majority of the time. And now what I’ve found to be helpful in managing expectations is to simply have no expectations. I’ve disappoint myself far too many times at this point that I now view any extra time you can spend with me as a bonus. That being said, it’s important that when us two do have time alone that you are is fully present – put the medicine talk on hold (unless he has a really juicy or horribly gory story to tell me and let me tell you, doctors have the best stories) and connect. Whatever connecting looks like for you. For us, it’s hot coffee & his guitar. Or hot coffee and Netflix. Or hot coffee and…more hot coffee. You get the point.
And what keeps me through the day is that I know that your shift will end and I can finally see your face (knowing that you will come home exhausted and seeing you dozing off at passenger seat while I’m driving). Things like “please don’t get sick”, “take a good care of yourself” and “see you soon” means a lot more that anything else these days. Because I now know that one thing you fear the most ― I can’t imagine seeing a sight of your body the first thing I opened up the ambulance door during my emergency call, I can’t imagine that happen to me ― you said that night while holding me tight.
That took him crying under my arm for the whole night.