On the Human Spirit.

Wrote this back in March. Which, coincidentally, helped my secondaries a bit. For myself more than anything. Definitely didn't copy and pass this one for applications. <3 elle

These past couple weeks, I've been outside of myself. Doing things that only youngin's do. Now I joke around that I'm this old lady, all the time. I know that is far from the truth, but I do have to say there is a sort of an advantage of where I sit. And its not so much the number of years that has passed but rather, because in those years I've been able to experience a number of things that not every one gets the chance to feel. A family death, an abuse as a child, a fracture, love, and amongst other things. 

Funny thing I'm actually screening this list, so to not have people think that I'm making this up. It all starts to sound like a joke but it's not. It's my life. And by saying that I went through certain things its never for bragging rights. Nor would I ever wish this for anyone, or have these experiences to make me "cooler" because I went through them. I guess, my sharing allows air to them, had I kept them inside. Sometimes, I think it's for a sense of validation from you but that's more of a scary thought to think that its true. 

After all that I've gone through, I still question resilience. The spirit. The thing that we all can't see but do.

I question if that still lives in me. This agility of the spirit. Have I lost it. I would not be here, to be able to smile, to joke around, to be the joke, to have good sustainable friendships, to be able to pursue the things in my life, if I did not believe that that existed. To move on from that shit that I found myself in and/or put myself through. Had I not had this, this "spirit", I really don't know where I would be right now.

People call it faith, some call it religion. But in the end of the day, it is this almost elusive version of ourselves that we 'feel' resides within. It has to. Right? I mean, I see it in others. Often, in fact. You know those moments when you're talking to someone and its just beaming out of their eyes? Every time I have an honest conversation with someone, I just see it in them. That's the part of them that I fall in love with. So, I must have one too right?

My whole pursuit for medicine is because of this. I want to protect that human spirit that resides in these physical body. I want to honor it, acknowledge its presence every day. I worked two years in clinical rehab. It is there where I fell in love with the human body. I know that the body is physical. We are a jumble of chemical reactions and physiological mechanisms to maintain homeostasis. But amongst all that jazz, there has to be a spirit that roams these physical entities. From my experiences with working with people - patients - I realize that the only thing that holds a person to come to a doctor's visit, to continue therapy, to find some sense of purpose through the pain require some sort of unspoken advantage. A spirit. A hope. A feeling that there is, or could just possibly be, something greater than themselves that is orchestrating its way through their discomfort. 

I know as 'scientists' we are to believe how certain things work, we must be analytical. There is no room in the sciences for the intangible. It's all about facts, numbers, graphs, physical ailments in response to certain triggers or stimuli. We must remain critical with the facts before us. You must always have an analytical mind, as my aunt always tell me. But I believe, partially bias since I minored in religion, that there is something substantial about the world outside of the physical realm we see every day. I know it sounds so simple as a decision to 'just believe'. That in reality, we all believe in something and it is only a matter of what basket we put our eggs in that matters. 

But in the end of the day, what 'believing' requires is work. A lot of it. Don't be fooled. Just because you can't touch it does not mean that a physical investment does not need to be made. I guess, that's sorta of the trick with it. Even though you can't see it, you have to practice in hoping that it exists, each and every day, in this concrete world.  that intangible form from within. I know it's there. I need to stop doubting it. By not believing, it screws me up. Yeah, I'm gonna stick by it. It's the only way to go.