Category Archives: relationship

Grief Bacon

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What are your favorite words or phrases, in any language?

Daughter taught me Kummerspeck recently–literally grief bacon. It’s the German compound noun for the weight one gains from emotional eating.

How awesome is that?

I posted the word on Facebook the other day, and a loving friend of German descent commented, “I hope you are reveling in the bizarre household-nature of German compound words, and not suffering from Kummerspeck.” I replied that I have indeed experienced Kummerspeck before (possibly also now, not sure), and that “I *love* German precisely because by having words for such mundane and yet significant experiences, the language, and thus the culture, validate them and make us feel not alone for having them.”

In med school we learned Mittelschmerz–middle pain–the pain women feel from ovulation, which happens 14 days prior to menstruation (the middle of a typical 28 day cycle). Now I also love Drachenfutter–dragon fodder–‘apology gift (given to a spouse)’. And everybody knows Schadenfreude–joy in others’ misery; but I like Freudenfreude–joy in others’ joy.

In Chinese I particularly love shang nao jin, 傷腦筋, which literally means to wound (shang) the mind (nao jin–‘brain nerve’). It’s used to express when one is exhaustingly vexed by a problem. Similarly, when we say someone is dong nao jin, 動腦筋, moving the mind, we mean they are actively, even agilely, thinking. I also love shuai, 帥, which is usually translated simply as handsome. But the connotation encompasses more than just physical appearance. There is something attractive, masculine, strong, graceful, respectable, and maybe even alpha, all included in the one word, one syllable expression. Chinese language is extremely efficient.

Here are some British expressions I love, which really make me want to live there for a while someday:

Barmy, barking mad, and off your head — crazy

Fiddly — fussy, requiring an annoying amount of close attention

Faff — to make a fuss over nothing

Cheeky — amusingly irreverent (I also love irreverent itself–the word and the way of being)

Dodgy — dishonest, unreliable, potentially dangerous, low quality, or just ‘off’ in some way

Loo — the best word in the whole world for bathroom

Isn’t this fun?? Won’t it be fantastic if everybody writes about their favorite phrases in the comments below? C’mon, it’ll only take a minute!! 😀

Range

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One of my favorite books of 2019; read to see how NASA crowdsourced solutions to their most vexing problems, and other amazing true stories of the value of meandering.

I am a doctor. I do medicine. This is my identity.

Yes, and no.

“Did you always want to be a doctor?” Hell no. I resisted mightily the Chinese-American pre-med stereotype. And no, my parents never pressured me. But then sophomore year of college, I became a dorm health aide. I got a tackle box filled with cold medicine, cough syrup, ibupofen, bandages, scissors, tweezers, rubbing alcohol, etc. Dormmates sought out my fellow aides and me for help with hangovers, food poisoning, splinters, and colds. I taped condom packets to my door. Every month we convened in the student health service basement for case review and didactic education, led by the physician and nurse who ran the program. I was hooked. After that, I could not not be a doctor. Damn.

So I did all the things: Went straight through, taking all the classes and exams, following the well-trodden, traditional path to today. I regret nothing that I did to get here. I also wish I had meandered a little more, taken some more time, maybe… travelled more, seen more, and done more, before committing at age 19 to the rest of this professional life.

So I encourage my kids to study abroad, to take strange, interesting jobs, gap years, to suck all the learning out of every divergent experience they can get, all in service of becoming more of who they are. I want their range to be wider and deeper than mine was at their age, and then to expand further. Son is a sailor and world traveler, and Daughter explores widely in art, fashion, literature, history, and their intersections. They both feel the freedom to make things more than I ever did growing up. Score!

As for myself, it’s not too late! Yes, I’m a doctor. I could not love it more. I’m also a speaker, a writer, a counselor, a dreamer–and who knows what else yet!?

Oh, I’m a book club member! That may be one of the best things I have ever done–exposed myself to smart, diverse women who read fiction, omg. I always thought I had nothing to learn from and could not understand the point of novels. Now I’m slowing getting it. [The Midnight Library, Remarkably Bright Creatures, Portrait of a Thief–highly recommend these, if you have not already read.] Amazingly, I’m currently binging romance audiobook #41–more on that in a future post. 😉 Through fiction I can live vicariously, explore my own inner world from different angles, and just wonder, not to mention connect with others whose experiences of the books diverge acutely from my own. It fosters empathy–how fascinating!

In the end, why expand our range–of experience, perspective, thought, and relationships?

Range allows us to reframe, to expand how we understand things, to realize how much more we have yet to learn. It stimulates curiosity, which fosters both earnest humility and audacious creativity. If we pay attention, really observe and witness the range of diversity around us, we inevitably, paradoxically, come back around, over and over again, to how those differences actually bind us together, and point us to our shared humanity, in the grand scheme of things.

By living and learning widely, paying attention generously and openly, even frivolously, we connect–to one another, and simultaneously more deeply to our true selves, in the fellowship of all of humanity. Wow.

Why, then, live any other way?

Infinite Possibilities

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Happy Birthday to meeee!! 

As of today, I begin my 50th year.  What. A. Ride!!  All at once I feel pretty well-accomplished and also utterly mediocre…  Married 25 years, practicing medicine 20, parenting almost 19, blogging 7.  Such a thick tribe of friends, so many of whom showered me with love and attention today, OMG.  So much to be grateful for, there simply are not enough words.  So much love.  …I might list the myriad self-diminishing comparisons here, but naah, I grow beyond such pointlessness in my advancing age.

The Book of Regrets.  That was my original title for this post.  Would it have grabbed more attention and views?  It was an honest point of query after I listened recently to The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.  Oh my gosh, HIGHLY recommend!  In the liminal space between life and death, the main character gets to peruse her personal Book of Regrets, and sample various alternative realities wherein she made different seminal life choices.  Each path shows her both favorable and adverse subsequent events and circumstances, an infinite set of possibilities, paradoxes, and outcomes.  Perspective, my friends!  I think we consistently underestimate its value, or at least neglect to practice it in too many encounters and endeavors.  What lies ahead that I have control over and not, and that will forever send me down this path and not another?  Which of the countless choices I might make, in any given moment, may close these doors and open those?  I get giddy just thinking about it—the future is so bright, so full of infinite possibilities, and I get to live into it!  OMG can’t wait can’t wait!

https://www.facebook.com/waitbutwhy/photos/a.675997765782461/3758835197498687/?type=3

Then again, in these 49 years, my Book of Regrets can feel quite heavy.  It appears sometimes out of nowhere, dropping like a sandbag on my chest—driving to work, in the shower, looking through old photos.  Within seconds I’m haplessly pinned under guilt, shame, sorrow, and remorse, sinking in the quicksand of self-loathing and powerlessness, wishing with visceral aching that I could just go back and be a better me—a much better me—in those flash moments that I will never forget, that I may never shake.  Ugh.

Paging through my book more thoughtfully, I realize that every regret is relational.  It’s never about not studying enough, failing a test, not achieving some goal, missing some external benchmark of success.  It’s never about coming up short in social comparison to others.  It’s always about hurting someone’s feelings, diminishing their self-esteem, abuse of power, and offloading or projecting my own discomfort and judgments onto others, making them suffer because I cannot tolerate or manage my own issues.  My regrets are all moral failings.  Oh man, it feels so shitty, looking back, surveying the damage I did, the relational carnage.  Wow.

*deep breath*

“What’s done is done.”  Husband has said this since our earliest days together.  I remember how freeing it felt—I still hear his voice, so clear and firm, in the living room of our first apartment, or was it a dorm room?  I am, indeed, utterly powerless to change the past.  Thankfully, shifting into agency over my present and future comes more easily every year of life and adversity lived.  Regret is painful.  And it’s inevitable.  Learning is the best poultice for such self-inflicted wounds.  And if I can figure a way to make amends, all the better.  How could I have been a better self then, when I’m always bettering myself now?  Grace and forgiveness, I know more deeply and profoundly, may be the greatest gifts we offer one another, including ourselves.  My most sincere thanks to all who have granted these to me.

Peace and equanimity, generosity and humility, joy and love, curiosity and learning, connection and solidarity.  That’s a good, strong list of healthy aspirations, ya?

It’s been a pretty awesome 49 years.  I have received so much more than I have given.  I shake my head in humble and astonished wonder.  The good news is that these days, I write my Book of Regrets in shorter chapters and longer intervals. 

Who knows how many more years I have?  However long it is, may I compose my other Books—of Contribution and Connection, among others—with eloquence, gladness, and excellent grammar.