Enough!

For the nth time this year, I have gotten the "oh my god you could be a brain surgeon, what are you doing crunching numbers and moving money?" question. I am tired of questions like that, and the head-shaking and comments from people saying what a waste or loss it is for me to have left research.

Yes, yes. But I have a life, I tell them. I am not what I do for a living. I leave my job, I don't take it home with me. Mark has so much remourse because he missed his daughters' childhoods. Peter lost his wife because his work was a full-time mistress. My sister Tamar works 18 hours a day keeping her business afloat, to the detriment of her health and her love life, even though she has a man in her life who worships the ground she walks on and would provide her a very comfortable life if she would let him.

And yet, says Rob, quoting lines from a Robert Frost poem (But yield who will to their separation, / My object in living is to unite / My avocation and my vocation / As my two eyes make one in sight), Can you imagine what it would be like to do what you love every day? No, I can't imagine that...probably because I haven't found what I love, like Tamar has.

I'm terribly bright, I know. I'm good with people, I know. That I have a voice that rubs people the right way, I have no doubt. I like to learn, I love a challenge, I never do anything the easy way. I throw obstacles in my own path--whether it is because of some perverse enjoyment in thwarting myself, or the joy of hurdling them, I do not know. I can strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere. My dilettantish knowledge-seeking habit means I can converse on just about any subject without sounding bored or idiotic. I have magical hands. Animals and children love me. I have an incredible creative and inventive energy. And so... Most of my talents are wasted in a laboratory. It was intellectually stimulating when it wasn't deadly boring. Oh the monotony of running tests and inputting mountains of data, of endless hours of statistical analysis. The yes, yes, YES! moments were too rare for me. I need more frequent gratification.

I like my life, I tell my friends, I am comfortable. And some of the them look me in the eyes and say, But you could be so much more. Rob shames me when he says that, when he asks me why I hold myself back, when he tells me I am one of those people he knows can do anything--and who doesn't. And sometimes I hear them, and something in me responds I know! Tamar says I should be writing. That I should finish one of the six novels I've left unfinished the past 15 years. Peter says I should go to Grad School. Matt can't believe I turned down Baylor. I told him I wouldn't have survived two months in Texas, never mind two years. Kevin said to come code with him. My uncle says do what makes me happy. At this point, what will make me happy is putting my formidable intelligence and drive to good use in getting through therapy. Which, by the way, was rescheduled to Monday morning.

10 days of work left and then I've got 3 weeks of vacation. I will have the company of one of my best friends, the splendid isolation and aching beauty of the desert, and nothing to do but walk and take photos and eat and sleep and converse when the urge strikes us. Sounds like a slice of paradise.