Working in a hospital every day, I am always aware of time’s passing.
Babies are being born on one floor, as people die on others.
This life is delicate, and finite.
If there’s one thing I wish I could convey in all my writings, it’s how fragile all of this is. 1/
Babies are being born on one floor, as people die on others.
This life is delicate, and finite.
If there’s one thing I wish I could convey in all my writings, it’s how fragile all of this is. 1/
Sometimes I think of Twitter as a galaxy, a universe.
I visualize it.
A shimmering ocean of stars, each pinpoint of light a single thought, a single tweet.
There are more than half a billion tweets sent out every day. More than six thousand tweets per second.
Voices. 2/
I visualize it.
A shimmering ocean of stars, each pinpoint of light a single thought, a single tweet.
There are more than half a billion tweets sent out every day. More than six thousand tweets per second.
Voices. 2/
I think of all the voices.
Of all the people who die, and never tweet again.
Of all the tweets that no one ever reads and that sit there, gathering digital dust on digital shelves.
Of all the voices behind the megaphones, booming and thundering, and their endless roar. 3/
Of all the people who die, and never tweet again.
Of all the tweets that no one ever reads and that sit there, gathering digital dust on digital shelves.
Of all the voices behind the megaphones, booming and thundering, and their endless roar. 3/
And then I remember a quiet place, from a time before the cacophony of Twitter.
My rotation through the newborn nursery in med school.
Seeing all the babies lying in their little cots next to each other, their breathing a quiet and gentle sound.
Some awake.
Most asleep. 4/
My rotation through the newborn nursery in med school.
Seeing all the babies lying in their little cots next to each other, their breathing a quiet and gentle sound.
Some awake.
Most asleep. 4/
I remember thinking of trajectories, the arcs of their lives.
This was the one time in their lives that all the babies would be in the same starting place.
Next to each other with blank slates. With entire lifetimes ahead, shaped by choices yet to be made.
Open doors. 5/
This was the one time in their lives that all the babies would be in the same starting place.
Next to each other with blank slates. With entire lifetimes ahead, shaped by choices yet to be made.
Open doors. 5/
I remember thinking of all the happiness and all the heartbreak ahead, for these babies.
Lying in their cots, next to fellow souls they might or might not ever see again.
Pinpoints of light, coming into the vast ocean of this world, even as other lights were going dark. 6/
Lying in their cots, next to fellow souls they might or might not ever see again.
Pinpoints of light, coming into the vast ocean of this world, even as other lights were going dark. 6/
Why am I thinking about this?
Because I’m starting to see lights going dark again.
Because I’m beginning to revisit a darkness I was plunged into a year ago.
A darkness we all thought we were leaving behind.
Because some voices are going silent, and some are drowned out. 7/
Because I’m starting to see lights going dark again.
Because I’m beginning to revisit a darkness I was plunged into a year ago.
A darkness we all thought we were leaving behind.
Because some voices are going silent, and some are drowned out. 7/
The intensivist sits next to me in the ICU work room.
We don’t say much. Ours is the grim silence of those who work against inevitability.
The phone rings. A patient recently intubated with COVID, is starting to decompensate.
The intensivist sighs wearily.
“Damn it.” 8/
We don’t say much. Ours is the grim silence of those who work against inevitability.
The phone rings. A patient recently intubated with COVID, is starting to decompensate.
The intensivist sighs wearily.
“Damn it.” 8/
There is an intersection.
A place where anger and numbness, grief and fatigue all meet.
A place where you come perilously close to not caring.
Not because you feel nothing, but because you feel too much.
Empathy will get you so far, and then it can destroy you. 9/
A place where anger and numbness, grief and fatigue all meet.
A place where you come perilously close to not caring.
Not because you feel nothing, but because you feel too much.
Empathy will get you so far, and then it can destroy you. 9/
As the intensivist leaves the room, I’m alone again with my thoughts.
Like I am now.
Alone here.
Casting my thoughts out as tweets, to become buried in half a billion others per day.
Waiting on people to make better choices. Wishing they could see.
Open doors.
Closing.
Like I am now.
Alone here.
Casting my thoughts out as tweets, to become buried in half a billion others per day.
Waiting on people to make better choices. Wishing they could see.
Open doors.
Closing.
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