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Saturday, December 18, 2004

Transparency

It's not uncommon for me to spend the entire day in the hospital never going by a window and never knowing what it looks like outside. Especially during the winter months, it's dark when I drive into work, and dark when I leave for home. So this is really the main reason I stopped paying much attention to the weather forcast. Because it doesn't make much of a difference in my life.

I never fully appreciated how my watch prevented me from going insane, marking off the hours that go by, orienting me to time, and reminding me that I am coming ever so closer to going home to Nathalie.

Then, I forgot to wear my watch to work the last several days. All of a sudden, I had no idea what time it was and time simply became an abstract idea. And the paucity of clocks in the hospital further exacerbated matters.

Yesterday, post call, sleep deprived and exhausted, after spending 36 hours in a fluorocent lit hospital, I had lost all concept of time. I had neither the slightest orientation to time or to date. I couldn't remember if it was afternoon, morning, or nighttime. I was in a limbo state. My senses were dulled, thoughts muddled, and memory speckled.

All because I forgot to wear a watch. So a toast to my Timex Ironman; keeper of time, foundation of orientation, and sentinel of my sanity.