Within 4 walls

Sitting in the stillness of JL's cousin's house in Sydney listening to the gentle whirring of the CPU as I browse through blogs and reflect on the day's events. We spent yesterday visiting the fish market, eating a sumptious meal of grilled whole flounder, chips and cute wee scallops buried in layers of melted cheese and taking the ferry to some unknown destination and enjoying the sights of opera house and harbour bridge and as we cruised along. It's the ideal sort of holiday. Lots of food, lots of sleep, lots of opportunity to rest one's feet, meandering through the streets of Sydney mindlessly with little on the agenda. All this travelling on buses, trains and ferries with JL has given me the chance to get to know her better too, to see a different perspective, where life is taken with a pinch of salt and events in life dealt with as they come. And with time I begin to think that in some ways she's right, life is so unpredictable that sometimes the best way to deal with life is to take it as it comes. Sure, there will be the bitter along the way but it only makes the sweet all the more sweeter. I love the way she embraces life, sees each hurdle as a challenge and as I listen to her on the boat I can't help but do a mental contrast of her attitudes and mine. I am a person who values stability to its utmost, who likes associating with things that are constant, who places loyalty, faithfulness and steadfastness above all other virtues. And then my thoughts switch to contemplating the future, of being out in the working world next year, having the responsibility of making sure the patients are well cared for on my shoulders and I can't help but feel excited yet afraid both at once. And then my mind reels on to the thoughts of possibly getting married, having children, looking after my parents when they grow old, perhaps doing all three while juggling a career all at once and here's when it becomes rather overwhelming and I find myself beating the thoughts back into the recesses of my mind with promises to myself to think about them in the future but one at a time. And then I wonder, since when have I become like this, from a person who so embraced the progressions through life--high school, uni, marriage, childbirth-- to one so filled with trepidation about the future?
Recently too, I've been getting these flags popping up every once so often in my mind, little "I must be more..." flags, I call them, reminding myself that to be a good doctor, daughter, wife (perhaps), mother (perhaps), I have to be more organised, caring, obliging, loving, accommodating... aargh... its too much really, and so I cope with it in the one way I've learnt well-- we beat it back into the recesses of my mind