Insomnia and tangent thinking

The cure for insomnia... first post an ambiguous post on social media, write about it in your journal, and of course blog about it...

As I start this I can feel my eyelids getting heavier, but if I try to lay down and sleep, my mind will start racing again and keeping me up with questions about the future or even the present.

Where do I begin? Um how about state licensure. I have to take a law exam, 90 minutes - 60 questions, not bad, but I can't take it until the state says I'm eligible. I'm not eligible until I finish the application, but I can't finish the application until I get them a few things. First I have to get them a copy of my transcript, but that of course won't be ready for several weeks, about 25-30 days from now, so no go there. Second they need my scores for boards - which is a whole other pressing matter on my shoulders. I'm waiting for my Part 1 and Part 3 scores, which I'll get the first full week in May, about 20 days from now. I guess there's no point in stressing over this since I can't really control any of that at this point. It's a waiting game, but it is seriously stressing me out, mostly because I am terrified that I didn't pass Part 1 this time around, like way freaked out about this. I probably need to see a therapist and get on some meds or something because I'm really starting to have panic attacks and am getting really anxious every time I think about it. If I don't pass, then I can't get licensed, then I can't practice. Ahhh!!!! Ok that is the big thing.

The other major thing that is keeping me awake is the job thing. I met with a doc in a town across the state, and the more time passes the more I realize that that particular practice is not where I want to be: it's small, I feel like I don't have space, I'm not sure that I would learn what I need to about practice (insurance, business management, etc), doesn't have the equipment that I would like direct access to to practice at the level I'm used to. So yeah I guess that is out, but the salary was amazing, really good for a new OD but I don't think it would prepare me for the future. The place I'm doing my internship right now is a practice that I had teched at while in undergrad and I am very comfortable there and know the doc really well, the doc and I work well together and she can provide me with a ton of knowledge on insurance, billing, business management, etc. Thing is she wants to bring me on as an independent contractor. That means that I'd have to put money aside to pay for taxes, not a problem I'm sure, but it also means that I won't be making a ton of money, I think it would be enough to live comfortably on while still being able to pay off loans and everything. It's going to take a lot of legwork, especially initially, on my part. I need to figure out how to get started. I'm going to have to get my own malpractice, personal insurance, do I have to be a s-corp or LLC, hire a CPA. All this requires money and I don't have any of that... Seriously, how am I supposed to pay for all this? That's my big concern here. I think this might be the best thing for me, at least to start out. I want/need to know the business aspect and the best way is to do it, I feel comfortable asking and learning from this doc. My parents aren't going to like it. I have to make the decision that I feel is the best for me. Follow for future posts on how I make out..

I'm single. I have no responsibilities to anyone but myself. I have no one to help me. I have no one to answer to. I have no one else's life to consider, which is good for me I guess. I'm not ready to settle down, I don't want to have take someone else into consideration, but I'm also a bit lonely. I don't have that other person to lean on. I am completely dependent on myself, which means I have to figure out how to live on my own money and don't have extra income, ya know what I'm getting at here. I can't believe that I'm almost 27 and still single, my life definitely isn't how I pictured it being at this point. But I've still got like 60 years or so of life left to live, so I've got time.

I just see guys I've been interested in and they are with other girls, and I can't help but feel a little jealous. I feel sometimes like what is wrong with me? Why don't guys want me? And I answer that with: I'm not pretty enough or skinny enough. I'm too depressed, I don't have a life, I don't know how to meet people, and the people that I do know seem to always forget me and overlook me. I don't know how many people in this world really consider me a friend. I can count them on one finger, outside of family. There is only one person that I feel like I could call at almost any time, but she has her husband and probably has several best friends. I don't have any.

Do you see how one little thought in my mind travels and transverses several subjects and makes me more depressed and more stressed. Sorry, probably more info that you would ever want to know about me, but oh well. Sending this out into the cosmos... Well wishes appreciated. I'm sure it will all work out well and how it is supposed to.

The Past

Sometime I fear that I live too much in the past. I remember the girl I used to be and wish that I could be as outgoing and energetic as I once was. But, I'm not that girl anymore. I am just me, but I don't know how to describe myself. I am just trying to make it through each day as it comes. I dread the future. I don't like to imagine what the future holds for me, mostly because I can't imagine it being happy, when I do imagine it, I see debt, tears, sadness, etc... Just when I start to feel like my life is turning around, when I stop remembering the people that I used to love or spend time with I just sadder, or those people show up at random again.

I don't know what I'm saying any more. I just know that an ex just added me to a google+ circle, no message or anything, but it's still weird right? I mean come on, what does this guy want from me. I gave him three and half years of my life, I spent my early twenties almost exclusively with this guy instead of forging relationships with others, instead of solidifying friendships to last me into adulthood. I don't blame him, I blame myself. Then when I moved, he decided not to come with me and left me broken hearted in a new place all alone. I am no longer broken hearted and I no longer love him, I'm not really sure I ever truly loved him - there was always a seed of doubt about that when I read back to some diary entries I wrote. I was happy that someone was paying me attention I think. Regardless, I was heart broken, so I guess I did love him in some way but not the way you are meant to love a soulmate. Then about a year ago, he popped back into my life and in a moment of loneliness, I let him in. We had a night of chatting about things I'd rather not mention here, but I'm not proud of what I did or said that night. Needless to say, he disappeared after that. I'm trying hard to not give too many details, like I said I'm not proud. I guess I had just wanted the closure that I never got after the break-up. I still haven't received the answers that I wanted. So this addition to a circle could very well be something very innocent and mean nothing at all, but I seem to find meaning in every single particle of dust. Some people are meant to come into your life and teach you a lesson, some people stay and many fade out of your life as quickly as they entered it. Some people just stay in that gray area. I remain friends with a couple of guys that I have fancied in the past, but we aren't much more than acquaintances now. This particular guy, I'm not sure I want to have in my life at all; he played his part and now it's time for his name to roll on with the credits, not keep popping up like that oh so frustrating game that you knock the hedgehogs on the the head (you know the arcade game I'm talking of). So many metaphors tonight. It must be my imagination getting the better of me about everything this evening.

I've been so focused on getting through school the last four years. Oh god, it has been four years, yikes! Anyway I've been so focused on getting through school that I haven't given myself the opportunity to have any kind of relationship with a member of the opposite sex. I have had my crushes but it has never come to any kind of fruition. I'm not even sure that I want to let anyone into my life. I have grown accustomed to being alone and building a life for myself that I don't know that I want to let someone be a part of it. Am I being jaded, do I think that I can't trust anyone again, that I can't love anyone again, maybe I just don't think anyone could love me. I'm afraid of repeating the past, I'm afraid of repeating other's mistakes, I'm afraid of not loving the man I marry, I'm afraid of not ever getting married, I'm terrified of the future and what it holds for me. I'm just scared and that makes me depressed. I suppose I should see someone, but what's the point. They can't tell me anything I don't know. They would be an open ear for me to talk to but that's what I'm doing here on this blog, isn't it. Rambling on and on about my life for no one who even cares or even wants to know. This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about me and my life, but maybe someone will stumble across this and realize that they aren't alone. Maybe someone out there is feeling the exact same way I am feeling at this moment and thinking they are alone. There are billions of people out there, we are just a grain of sand on this enormous beach of life trying not to get washed away by the waves.

I guess I'll stop my rambling for tonight and get some rest.

Whoops

Well, so much for posting every day. Things just got out of hand. If you want to see all my pics, my instagram is: shu10str.

I can't believe that my time in Montgomery is almost up. Everyone has been really great and I have learned so much about conditions that I haven't seen before, about the type of practice I want to pursue, and the kind of doctor that I hope to be and potray to my patients. It has been a great rotation overall.

Less than three months to go untl graduation now!!! Can't wait.

Day 6 - C is for

C is for... Color vision! Way to keep up the optometry theme throughout this photo challenge. I was going it take a pic of an actual ishihara plate, but I forgot to. Instead I have an app that has color plates on it, so it took a screenshot.

Can you tell what number it is? Keeping up with this blog is a little harder than I thought. Mostly because I don't know what to write about every day. I cancbarely come up with a sentence for my five year journal most days. 

Day 5 - Square

I'm a day behind on this one. The theme was square. Honestly I thought it would be like orange... As soon as I had the theme in mind then it would show up everywhere. That wasn't the case unfortunately. I don't see much of anything square, it's all curved or round or rectangular. I did come across this though:

It's ice breakers ice cube gum. Lol. It works I guess.

Day 4 - Childhood

One on my favorite memories of being a child was going to the park with my brother and dad. In Texas there was a huge wooden park. I loved running around and playing hide and seek and having dad swing my brother and me on the tire swing. In fact, I still love parks and play sets and swings and slides. I remember my cousins built a tree fort in Ohio. It was by far the coolest thing I had ever seen. I always wanted a tree house. Then in Virginia there was a park in our neighborhood, that's where we all hung out in middle school - we had water gun fights and played hide and seek throughout the entire neighborhood. My favorite place was that neighborhood in Virginia. I have so many memories, I could fill a book with all I did there. I was alive there. What happened?... Anyway.

A great date would be going to a large park and running through it, pretending to be on a pirate ship or in a treehouse in the forest. Something like in "Bones" when Hodgins and Angela have their first date on a swing set. <3 love it. Love "Bones" by the way too. I just finished watching Season 5. Balled like a baby on the finale, just like I did when I saw it originally. Love Bones and Booth together. Season 5 has to be the best season, the lingering glances, Booth's love for Brennan showing up in everything he does and says and looks. Swoon! Sorry about that tangent. I just really want someone to love me like that one day. I have hope, I mean Booth and Bones are in their late 30's and early 40's. I'm only in my late 20's (barely) so I have time still.

Now is my time to get my career started. Now is my time to finally figure out who I am outside of being a student. I feel like that has been my identity for so long and I don't know who I am if I'm not a student. I'm not a girlfriend. I may be an acquaintance for some. A daughter/sister/niece/cousin/granddaughter to others. I need to figure out how I identify myself. Doctor? Woman? Independent? I'm not very good at this am I? I'll figure it out eventually. For now, bed and dreaming about playgrounds and parks and being a kid.

Day 3 - Orange

My first thought was "I don't have a lot of orange in my life". I don't particularly like the color orange. I could be that I think it's an ugly color. It could be the fact that I worked for Home Depot as a cashier for some time, and just had fill of orange aprons. Then keeping the theme in mind today, I saw orange everywhere. It is on my Starbucks K-cups, on the bread packaging, on my toothpaste squeezer, my astringent is an orangey-pink color, the blogger website icon, the Firefox icon, but there's one thing I didn't even notice... Something I look at almost every day... The retina. How could I forget about the retina. True the retina itself is clear and when you are looking at the fundus the color is from deeper structures, but the isn't really the point here. The point is that I see at least 6-8 retinas average each day right now and forgot to register what I see. In honor of orange I present my retina. No HIPPA violations here, this is not a patients fundus, this is my own fundus.