Saturday, July 15, 2006
Grey's Anatomy - The Art of Suffering
I am not a big tv person, but there are a few shows that I have been TIVOing and enjoying with great interest. They include Grey's Anatomy, Project Runway, and House Hunters. Interesting assortment, but they are all definately chick interest shows. Grey's Anatomy is about a bunch of surgical residents in a hospital in Seattle. Sometimes it is a bit soap operaish but mostly it is insightful and melancholy. The main character, Meredith, is suffering through many things: being an intern (surgical!) at a hospital where her mother used to be a great surgeon and who now has Alzheimers and is in a home, her lover turns out to be her boss and married to another faculty member, and she is estranged from her father. She is alone all except her fellow intern friends. Her life is all about suffering and the only happy moments are when she is taking care of patients. I certainly enjoy the show for all its drama and the cute guys on it, but there is something about Meredith that I can relate to. It is not the life I am living now, but parts of my life were reminiscent of what she is going through. I remember that feeling of loving someone who did not love me back and wanting something I could not have. The feelings of highs and lows, the rush of lust and the emptiness of being alone. The pleasure was fleeting and sometimes even came with the suffering.
Of course, I relate to the consuming work of the internship and residency, when all your life was work and how little sleep and how little of a life you had. And the only people you had time to socialize (and date/ sleep with), were the same people ou saw everyday and everynight. And how awful and annoying that became after a while. My pleasure was in learning and taking care of my patients, but during the time of training, especially in the later times, I began to crave a normal life. A life of time in my own house, travel, a husband that did not remind me of my work (I was married at the time to a doctor and we went thru a divorce at the end of my residency. I am now married to a non doctor), and children. I began to want to grow up and wanted a life that was more than my work.
I actually did not really want to have a child until this realization and until I met my current dh. So here I am now, extrapolating on a TV show that is haunting to me.
Of course, I relate to the consuming work of the internship and residency, when all your life was work and how little sleep and how little of a life you had. And the only people you had time to socialize (and date/ sleep with), were the same people ou saw everyday and everynight. And how awful and annoying that became after a while. My pleasure was in learning and taking care of my patients, but during the time of training, especially in the later times, I began to crave a normal life. A life of time in my own house, travel, a husband that did not remind me of my work (I was married at the time to a doctor and we went thru a divorce at the end of my residency. I am now married to a non doctor), and children. I began to want to grow up and wanted a life that was more than my work.
I actually did not really want to have a child until this realization and until I met my current dh. So here I am now, extrapolating on a TV show that is haunting to me.
