The Almost First Valentine's Day

One year ago, the now-girlfriend and I had been messaging each other online for weeks, although we hadn't yet met in person.  This was in direct violation of my personal policy to meet people early on in the dating process - before I became attached to the online version of them - but a real-life meeting was hindered by the fact that she was on a month-long road trip to the Southern States.  So we had only the virtual world in which to get to know each other.  And I was becoming very attached to her.

She returned to our home city the day before Valentine's Day, and I was leaving for San Francisco the day after Valentine's Day, so we had a one-day window in the middle to meet.  Which we didn't do, as I, ever the pessimist, decided that I didn't want to potentially ruin Valentine's Day forever with the memory of a terrible date.  Instead, I went to San Francisco with only a fantasy version of her in my mind, and I spent my days thinking about how to impress her with witty and intelligent stories of my travels.

(The Pride Flag in San Francisco's Castro District)

When I returned, and we finally met in person over a pot of Earl Gray tea (her) and a glass of Sibling Rivalry (me), she was everything and nothing that I had imagined.  She was even more beautiful than she had been in her pictures, and I had to force myself to look away to keep from creepily staring at her.  She was louder and more confident than I had expected, and my shy self felt unpleasantly awkward in comparison.  The date was a short one - she had intentionally scheduled something immediately afterwards so that she would have an excuse to leave - but it left me wanting to know more about this intriguing creature.

And so I have.  Next Sunday (the 22nd) marks our one-year anniversary, and we are both hopeful that it will be one of many.  It has been a tough year in many ways, marked by my studying for and writing my licensing exam, by work crises (mine and hers), and by a cancer diagnosis for my mom*, but it has always been made better by her presence. 

In the words of my Valentine:  "If I had known then what I know now, I would have met you on Valentine's Day."

*Worthy of one or more separate posts, but I will say that here that she is post-surgery and apparently cancer free.  Yay!

Wasn't there a blog here?

If you stopped by here any time after the middle of September, you may have noticed that my previously active blog had suddenly disappeared.  It hadn't become password-protected, as often happens with medical blogs, but rather it had completely disappeared from the face of the earth.  As if it had never existed. 

What happened, you ask?  Well...let's just say that something random and unfortunate happened at work, and the shit hit the proverbial fan.  I can't talk about it here, but I will say that it was awful and terrifying and left me wondering for a while if I would have a career in medicine*.  I hate even thinking back to it.

When "the situation" happened, there was suddenly vastly more attention being paid to me by the people in power.  And it occurred to me that the last thing I needed was for someone to discover my blog.  While I've always been cognizant of patient confidentiality, and I've tried to err on the side of saying too little, I was worried that someone who was looking for something to be upset about could easily find that something on my blog.  So I took it down.

In the past four months, the shit has settled almost completely.  My dear girlfriend has supported me through many rough days, as have the people at work who know me and work with my directly.  If you ever need to hear positive things about yourself, screw something up royally.  Suddenly all of your supporters will come out in full force.

So...that's my vague story about where I've been since September.  I'm writing this now, in part, as an explanation for anyone out there who wondered what had happened to me.  I'm also on elective in a different province, so I suddenly find myself with extra time on my hands and thinking about the good old days of blogging.  I don't know if blogging here will ever become a regular activity again, but it's possible.

We shall see.

*It didn't, however, involve harm to a patient or a malpractice case or anything of the sort.  Thank all that is good in the world.