I like to keep my issues strong

Let's not beat around the bush, I was feeling pretty low and pretty sorry for myself. The nadir (which is a term I've picked up since I've grown fond of talking about neutrophils, and now I use in common conversation much to the chagrin of my puzzled buddies, poor things) was right before vacation, and it's funny, because then I didn't talk about it. That's my thing, I guess. When I'm at the lowest of the low, I go on full lockdown and conserve all my thoughts, and try to get by, and I don't talk about how I feel everything giving way underneath me.

It's when I'm trying to scramble back up to normal, to serenity, that's when I start talking about how bad things have been.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty badly about my life and where it's headed and how I live in this horrible bubble, and then AP and I decided, because it's been unseasonably warm for February out here, to go for a drive and take a hike. And let me tell you, when you are met with this sight, you realize maybe there's not so much to complain about:

So things are okay.

Well, not totally. To tell the truth, it was sort of hilarious. AP and I went on this hike about a year ago, and the world was very different at that time, for both of us. Last time, we chatted the whole way, merrily walking along, and came home ready to take on the world. This time, we stopped talking about half way through the hike because we were huffing and puffing so hard we couldn't be bothered to make conversation. It was tragic and funny at the same time. Tragic because internship, that thing that is supposed to turn me into a competent physician able to improve my patients' health, has destroyed my own health.

Oh well, what can you do, but shrug, strap on a bit of bond and realize it's time to struggle back up that hill to well-being, regardless of whether it seems like the task of Sisyphus.