Wedding Ring
We've all heard the proverbs, heard the poets, heard about the road not taken. In life, as in medicine, sometimes it seems as if there's nothing to be done, but now and then, what's worse is having too many choices. We think about what we can do to make the future different; we think about what we could have done that would have made everything right now.
Though there are rarely any real cases for the clinic, there are a lot of little things to do throughout the day. People stop in for small things all the time: cuts that need cleaning and bandaging, the occasional twisted ankle, headaches, a whole lot of sunburns, a surprising number of questions. They tend to be basic and even on the days when Meredith isn't feeling quite herself, she can manage them with little thought.
Today's visitor, though, proves particularly distracting only because of who she is. Meredith's seen Olive once or twice, but the girl never gets any less confusing; she makes it difficult for Meredith to tell if the resemblance to her younger self is really so striking or if she's just projecting, seeing expressions like her own on that face and alarming herself with it. It's strange enough to meet someone who reminds herself so much of her teenage self - except clearly a happier person than she ever was at that age - without that someone also having red hair and green eyes, making it impossible for her not to think, now and then, of what it would look like if she and Sean ever had a child (and then, in turn, to remember their visit to his home, their time at the Keep, the daughter he brought home. It's harder now, as it gets further away, to reconcile that time and that child with the Theresa she knew, or even, sometimes, to feel it was real at all).
The pull of the past is irresistible enough on its own at times. Add in every what if in the book and we can't help it - we're addicted to thinking about the people we could have done and the things we could have accomplished if we'd just chosen differently. And when it comes to what's ahead, well, all those what ifs can add up to a whole lot of pressure.
The girl's only come in for a band-aid for a scraped knee, except that once she's sitting down, insisting on applying it herself (although Meredith makes her wait for the cut to be cleaned), she starts babbling, asking questions like "On a scale from 'eh' to 'oh, holy shit, Jesus, no, God, why am I doing this,' how much exactly is it supposed to hurt when you lose your virginity? Technically, medically speaking" that make Meredith momentarily grateful that she's not going to have children. She's always known she wasn't meant for that anyway, that she'd be a terrible mother. It's only that, now and then since their return, sometimes she finds herself thinking about it anyway, how much she actually liked it for the very brief while it lasted, how she'd thought maybe, maybe, she wouldn't be so terrible at it after all. She manages alright with this one, at least, or she hopes she does, sending Olive out again with advice and the girl's half-laughing assurances she won't do anything before she's ready, she just wants a professional opinion. (Admittedly, the laughter is probably as much at Meredith's rather stringent, less than coherent advice that she be absolutely certain and find the right person and all the things everyone always says in these situations which she never, never listened to herself. She's never said she's not a hypocrite, and honestly, it's difficult not to look at the kid and wonder if she could have been happy like that, too, with a different mother, a different life, different choices, even if the ones she's talking about aren't actually the ones she regrets.)
It doesn't keep her from thinking about it as she sits down again, almost laughing herself at how surreal that was. She thinks, at least she'll never have to do that - or even worse, the basic sex talk - with a daughter or son of her own, but the idea isn't as comforting as it should be. Either way, it's getting ahead of herself when they haven't even picked a new date for the wedding that was supposed to happen months ago. She reaches to twist her ring around her finger and, for a moment, her heart lurches in her chest as she realizes it isn't there.
What if you choose wrong? We can't go back once we've begun. Can't retrace our steps, no matter how much we wish we could. And like the possibility of illness, major decisions sit in the back of our minds, begging to be made even when we can't bear to choose. Do you go to the doctor and find out the truth? And then what, as surgeons, do we pursue? The aggressive route? Something gentler or proven, but potentially less effective? Or do we just do nothing at all, just wait and see?
It's normal practice for Meredith to take the ring off while she works and set it aside, but she can't remember now where she did so or if she might have even left it back at the house, and she gets to her feet, shuffling through the papers on the counter, kneeling down to look under it. "Crap," she hisses, "crap, crap, crap."
[Help Meredith search for her engagement ring; it's around there somewhere. ST/LT welcome, open until I say otherwise, fill out the form at island_medical for any clinic visits. She has the morning shift on Fridays.]
Though there are rarely any real cases for the clinic, there are a lot of little things to do throughout the day. People stop in for small things all the time: cuts that need cleaning and bandaging, the occasional twisted ankle, headaches, a whole lot of sunburns, a surprising number of questions. They tend to be basic and even on the days when Meredith isn't feeling quite herself, she can manage them with little thought.
Today's visitor, though, proves particularly distracting only because of who she is. Meredith's seen Olive once or twice, but the girl never gets any less confusing; she makes it difficult for Meredith to tell if the resemblance to her younger self is really so striking or if she's just projecting, seeing expressions like her own on that face and alarming herself with it. It's strange enough to meet someone who reminds herself so much of her teenage self - except clearly a happier person than she ever was at that age - without that someone also having red hair and green eyes, making it impossible for her not to think, now and then, of what it would look like if she and Sean ever had a child (and then, in turn, to remember their visit to his home, their time at the Keep, the daughter he brought home. It's harder now, as it gets further away, to reconcile that time and that child with the Theresa she knew, or even, sometimes, to feel it was real at all).
The pull of the past is irresistible enough on its own at times. Add in every what if in the book and we can't help it - we're addicted to thinking about the people we could have done and the things we could have accomplished if we'd just chosen differently. And when it comes to what's ahead, well, all those what ifs can add up to a whole lot of pressure.
The girl's only come in for a band-aid for a scraped knee, except that once she's sitting down, insisting on applying it herself (although Meredith makes her wait for the cut to be cleaned), she starts babbling, asking questions like "On a scale from 'eh' to 'oh, holy shit, Jesus, no, God, why am I doing this,' how much exactly is it supposed to hurt when you lose your virginity? Technically, medically speaking" that make Meredith momentarily grateful that she's not going to have children. She's always known she wasn't meant for that anyway, that she'd be a terrible mother. It's only that, now and then since their return, sometimes she finds herself thinking about it anyway, how much she actually liked it for the very brief while it lasted, how she'd thought maybe, maybe, she wouldn't be so terrible at it after all. She manages alright with this one, at least, or she hopes she does, sending Olive out again with advice and the girl's half-laughing assurances she won't do anything before she's ready, she just wants a professional opinion. (Admittedly, the laughter is probably as much at Meredith's rather stringent, less than coherent advice that she be absolutely certain and find the right person and all the things everyone always says in these situations which she never, never listened to herself. She's never said she's not a hypocrite, and honestly, it's difficult not to look at the kid and wonder if she could have been happy like that, too, with a different mother, a different life, different choices, even if the ones she's talking about aren't actually the ones she regrets.)
It doesn't keep her from thinking about it as she sits down again, almost laughing herself at how surreal that was. She thinks, at least she'll never have to do that - or even worse, the basic sex talk - with a daughter or son of her own, but the idea isn't as comforting as it should be. Either way, it's getting ahead of herself when they haven't even picked a new date for the wedding that was supposed to happen months ago. She reaches to twist her ring around her finger and, for a moment, her heart lurches in her chest as she realizes it isn't there.
What if you choose wrong? We can't go back once we've begun. Can't retrace our steps, no matter how much we wish we could. And like the possibility of illness, major decisions sit in the back of our minds, begging to be made even when we can't bear to choose. Do you go to the doctor and find out the truth? And then what, as surgeons, do we pursue? The aggressive route? Something gentler or proven, but potentially less effective? Or do we just do nothing at all, just wait and see?
It's normal practice for Meredith to take the ring off while she works and set it aside, but she can't remember now where she did so or if she might have even left it back at the house, and she gets to her feet, shuffling through the papers on the counter, kneeling down to look under it. "Crap," she hisses, "crap, crap, crap."
[Help Meredith search for her engagement ring; it's around there somewhere. ST/LT welcome, open until I say otherwise, fill out the form at island_medical for any clinic visits. She has the morning shift on Fridays.]