Grey's Again
So apparently, I'm on a Callie kick. Who knew? (references the last episode, not really a spoiler, but it would be confusing)
I am a surgeon. It is what I do. Some might say it is who I am. They would be wrong. Mostly. There might be a tiny kernel of truth in that. I know there is something about it that makes me different, distinguishes me from my white-coated colleagues that shrink away from scalpels. Doing what I do requires a steady confidence, an immutable belief that I am allowed to take things apart because I know how to put them back together.
If only it were always that simple. Trapped together inside this house of healing, we tear each other apart. And the wounds are seldom clean, rarely neat, and never fixed with simple nylon stitches. Everyone has tangled lives here and perturbing one strand makes the whole web reverberate. Everyone except her. At least I thought so, before today.
Today, she surprised me. Again. Not because she disagreed with me. That was nothing new. We have little arguments all the time, about the silly inconsequential things that make up our days and nights together. The arguments have helped define our burgeoning relationship, given us guidance on the limits of each other’s tolerance. And the teasing dimples that signal the end of each spat? They have gently guided me into a world I had only touched upon before.
She, who I thought I was learning to know, surprised me with a story I hadn’t heard, with a pain she hadn’t let me glimpse. And in a way - a small, unsettling way - it lifted my spirit. She was part of the web, part of the craziness, because I now held a part of her.
It would have been easier not to care about George, to deny what he was to me, to hate him for his infidelity. But I took him apart. I took him apart by taking him to Vegas. And I never knew how to put him back together.
And now, I am afraid that I’ve taken her apart with my ignorance. By blithely disregarding what I didn’t want to hear, without asking her why until it might be too late. I sat there as she spoke and watched her unravel in a moment, her eyes glazing over with tears.
My hands? They fix things. Bad and broken things. I am a surgeon. It is what I do. What she does. I hope she understands.
“I’m sorry.”
She flexes her small hand in mine, and suddenly, I know she does.
I am a surgeon. It is what I do. Some might say it is who I am. They would be wrong. Mostly. There might be a tiny kernel of truth in that. I know there is something about it that makes me different, distinguishes me from my white-coated colleagues that shrink away from scalpels. Doing what I do requires a steady confidence, an immutable belief that I am allowed to take things apart because I know how to put them back together.
If only it were always that simple. Trapped together inside this house of healing, we tear each other apart. And the wounds are seldom clean, rarely neat, and never fixed with simple nylon stitches. Everyone has tangled lives here and perturbing one strand makes the whole web reverberate. Everyone except her. At least I thought so, before today.
Today, she surprised me. Again. Not because she disagreed with me. That was nothing new. We have little arguments all the time, about the silly inconsequential things that make up our days and nights together. The arguments have helped define our burgeoning relationship, given us guidance on the limits of each other’s tolerance. And the teasing dimples that signal the end of each spat? They have gently guided me into a world I had only touched upon before.
She, who I thought I was learning to know, surprised me with a story I hadn’t heard, with a pain she hadn’t let me glimpse. And in a way - a small, unsettling way - it lifted my spirit. She was part of the web, part of the craziness, because I now held a part of her.
It would have been easier not to care about George, to deny what he was to me, to hate him for his infidelity. But I took him apart. I took him apart by taking him to Vegas. And I never knew how to put him back together.
And now, I am afraid that I’ve taken her apart with my ignorance. By blithely disregarding what I didn’t want to hear, without asking her why until it might be too late. I sat there as she spoke and watched her unravel in a moment, her eyes glazing over with tears.
My hands? They fix things. Bad and broken things. I am a surgeon. It is what I do. What she does. I hope she understands.
“I’m sorry.”
She flexes her small hand in mine, and suddenly, I know she does.