Remember It's Just Different From What You've Seen

I've become enamored with watching things change, lately.

Perhaps I should start by saying that I am, or was, (or am) terrified of changes. I get into grooves, and I like them. I find it hard to listen to new music--even music by artists I like--because I too much enjoy the music I've listened to before. I re-read books, even when I have brand new ones, with uncracked covers and that new-paper smell, on my shelf. In my reach. I make the same six of seven meals for dinner, rotating them in and out. I've done the same with lunches. And I've made the same smoothie, pretty much, for breakfast for the past year.

But things are changing. [But when are they not?]

I'm currently delighted with the minute changes in our weather. It is not autumn, not even remotely. It won't even begin to feel like autumn for another month, I'm guessing. But the weather is changing, in that it isn't getting any hotter. We've crossed over a peak. The nights are cooler, and in the mornings, I ride to school with my windows down, no air conditioning. I'm enjoying it--God, I'm enjoying it so much. Maybe because I can, for the first time in a while. Because I'm getting sleep. Because I can drive my car somewhere without worrying I should be studying. Because I can.

I'm watching relationships change and shift. I've made new friends in graduate school, made one very good friend in my lab. We have become bonded by our snark, by our shared project, by our chemistry background. When I don't understand something, she can usually explain it; when she needs to do math, I pull my legal pad out from under all the crap on my desk and start writing.

My one friendship from medical school that will never change hasn't, of course--I still find myself falling out of a chair with laughter in our favorite Chinese restaurant. When he names a girl in our shared class, I name her friend. We talk, for hours, when he parks in front of my apartment.

But my other friendships from medical school have changed, even if it's just in the amount of time we spend with each other. But we make things work, drink cocktails in living rooms and bake in each others' kitchens. We laugh, at 11 PM in my living room, at Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians and Shit My Dad Says. The change is that we may not see each other for a week, but there is no change in our shared smiles. Or perhaps there is--that in their new less-ness, they become richer.

I've started some grad school classes, which represent a sea change from the medical school classes. They are much smaller, much more intimate, engineered for discussion and understanding. I'm taking BioOrganic Chemistry, and when I tell people about it, they make this face:

Which is funny, because it is by far my favorite class I've taken since starting here. I am, essentially, taking it for fun--I don't need it, per se, but I wanted it, and I do need the grade boost, which it probably will be. I need a certain program director to see that I can succeed in a certain type of class. Whether or not he will concede is, of course, another matter. One I'm not too concerned with.

In any case, there are changes in the languages I can speak, and changes in that I can no longer fully communicate with my friends. Here, there are "primers" and "MasterMix" and "OhmyfuckingGOD I can't believe I'm having to fight with another company that send me the wrong thing or missed my fax or is BEING A SHITHEAD." There is finagling and working for one's self and having to be self-motivated, which I am sometimes good at and sometimes, well, not. My friends are learning another language, and though I am not fluent in it now, I will someday understand "codes," and "palliative care" and "ED" and what it means to be "on the wards." But it's ok. We still speak "trivia" and "girl's day" and "GODIneedadrink" and "somedays, I am so frustrated I cry" and "I can't believe her Facebook status, let's look at it again."

So things are changing, have changed. But I can roll. Today, this year, now--I can roll. So let's crank it up and do steamrollers, shall we?

We shall.