Stifling the Adventurer

Image courtesy of Bippity Boppity Boo

     To say it started in Stuttgart is wrong, because it started long ago.  It started when I was a kid, hurt, on an intravenous, dependent on a stooped position to walk even a step.  My mother was beside herself, my nurse was callous and cutting (read: hilarious), and I was starting to figure out that school was far easier than I had ever dreamed it could be.  I was a smart girl, a really smart girl.  I understood material faster than most (all?) of my classmates and completed tasks thoroughly and with care.  I didn’t buy the excuse that because I was “bored” I could act up and become defiant.  I used the opportunity in elementary school to complete high school level math, read a lot of books, and explore the world of (slightly) higher education.  When in hospital, my teacher couldn’t produce the work fast enough: I would read it all, complete it all, check it all over to ensure I hadn’t missed anything.  Even without the aid of a teacher, all on my own hooked up to all those machines, I was whizzing through the work that my 12-year old peers more than likely struggled with.  It was fascinating.  I was intelligent.

            I fast forward to my current life, my current job: I see intelligent kids here everyday.  There aren’t many of them, but they do exist.  And do you know what I think about every time I meet their acquaintance?  I think, “They’re always going to be intelligent.  They can’t lose that.”  Somehow though, in my life, I feel like (correction: I felt like) I lost it.  Imagine that.  How utterly ridiculous.

My nurse’s name was Nancy.  She was a smoker, had a deep, husky voice, 80’s hair, and made no bones about how it was she, they, the nurses, who did the work, while the doctors got all the credit.  It was they who were the suckers: the women who cleaned up, followed up, paid very close attention, so that the doctors could make all the diagnoses and “take all the credit”.  Nancy told me in no uncertain terms that during university, she was smart enough to be a doctor.  Then she met her husband, they wanted kids, and she had kids, and became a nurse instead.  It was quicker, it was easier, and she had a family to think of.  She had regretted that decision since the day it was made.  Nancy nodded eagerly when I told her my great idea: I would become a doctor.  She was excited for me.   And then her face clouded over: “Do it now”, she advised (read: growled).   “Do it now before you get married and have kids and forget how smart you are.”  I remember her these 18 years later.  I remember the disdain, the contempt for her former self in her voice and in her expressions.  I remember, I have remembered, for all these years.  Somehow though, despite all the remembering, I have managed to stifle Nancy and her words of wisdom.  I’ve managed to stifle until now.