taking inventory, part 1: the preamble

I’m not going to be one of those girls who blogs about Grey’s Anatomy.

Okay, I am going to be one of those girls who blogs about Grey’s Anatomy, but only sort of and only for the beginning of this post.

As a person who has seen every episode of Grey’s, I’m obviously drawn to it for a lot of different reasons.  While some of them are girly (Weee!  Derek & Meredith!), and some of them are wildly superficial and inappropriate (I wonder how much I’d have to pay Mark Sloan to come over here and McSteam up my business), those aren’t the main reasons I tune in every week and own every season on DVD.

The main attraction for me is how unconditionally connected each of the characters is to being a doctor.  That kind of relentless passion is so rare, and it’s something that I desperately envy.  Because you can like your job, you can even love your job (which I definitely do), but feeling that gut connection, just knowing that you’re doing the right thing and that you’re working endlessly for something larger than yourself, is incredible.  I can’t imagine putting in those kinds of hours and sacrificing so much, I can’t imagine doing something so deeply satisfying.

And so I watch, week after week, as the lives of the characters are complicated by personal relationships, family issues, and a whole myriad of other things, and marvel at how they remain grounded and balanced through their pursuit of surgery.

I wish I knew what I wanted that badly.  I wish I could be that dedicated to something, anything.  I wish I were working to achieve something that I knew I valued above all else.  I wish I had a comparably passionate goal.

And right after wishing all of those things I look around and think “shut up douchebag, you chose to live The Life Without A Plan.”

And I did.  I chose to graduate NYU a year early.  I chose to go back and forth between NYC and California for a year and a half without ever really settling in one place.  I chose a job that didn’t offer me the long-term benefits and traditional security I could have gotten elsewhere.  And most recently, I chose to move to California for a job that still hasn’t proven it’s real worth yet, even though it meant leaving behind my life, my stuff, and my boyfriend.  I chose to not know what I’m doing the next day, yet alone the next year.

I chose to not have health insurance.  I chose to rent a room from someone I found on Craigslist.  I chose not to put any real effort or money into decorating my new room because, like every other time, I was completely unsure how long I’d be staying.  And most notably, I chose to put off committing to anything or anyone.

I acknowledge that I am where I am as a result of my choices.  I largely believe they were the best choices for me, and yet I’m still unsatisfied in a lot of ways, still restless and unhappy in a lot of ways.  And so this weekend I’m taking an inventory of myself.  Going through the compartments of my life and trying to see what’s working and what’s not, what’s worthwhile and what’s holding me back.  Hopefully in the process I’ll figure out how to harness that kind of drive and intensity, because I know I have it in me.  I see how passionate I am about certain people and how crazy I can be about certain fleeting aspects of my life, and think that if I can just figure out how to focus that unbelievable energy in positive and productive ways, I’d be unstoppable.

So like I said, I’m taking inventory.  I’ll let you know what I find.

~ by nicoleantoinette on May 9, 2008.