Morbidity and Mortality, or M & M’s, is a practice where doctors discuss the events surrounding the death of a patient and how they may either prevent futures deaths of that nature or how to perform a better job in general when faced with such events. It sounds sick and twisted, but I get how it can be a useful practice. If we did a post-mortem on all our mistakes in life, we’d be the better for it.
So I’m managing a contract on behalf the school. Lot’s of undergrads, young students, kids really, some of them girls. Thankfully, I have a pretty even-keeled bunch. My cohorts, however, have a much different group of students. And that is where the problem lies. I’m 36, I have years of experience managing companies and people, my fellow managers are 23 without such experience.
There is a young girl, recently turned 21, who is on another team and is going through some “stuff”. My fellow managers have not yet noticed only to say that she is behind on work and may need replacing. They don’t know what to say, what to do, and they are going to turn it over to school faculty to deal with. Clearly, this is something I don’t need to be involving myself with. I am busy with school, busy with life, and no time to be dealing with the turmoils of a 21 year old girl.
But said 21 year old girl is in a class with me and when she got out of her seat the other day, we happened to lock eyes and then I saw it: she’s ready to break. And by break, I mean, utterly ready to lose her shit…mind…shit, whatever…
So I invited her out for a drink, forced her really. I heard her story: break up with her first serious boyfriend, ending an unhealthy friendship, moving out on her own, a sick parent…basically everything that throws you into a tail-spin. She tried to justify it by saying she was just stressed. I told her it was deeper than that and that she was a mess. She admitted she was and began to cry.
I don’t have time for crying. I don’t have time for this girl’s problems. I’m so swamped with school and life at any given time that I can barely keep my head above water. I don’t have time for this girl and her tears.
But she got to me.
She did, she got to me. I know what it’s like to have your world fall down around your ears while trying to deny to yourself that your world isn’t falling down around your ears. I know what it’s like to be cut-off, to not have anyone to talk to. I know what it’s like to be so overwhelmed by the coming weeks that you can’t see your way through the next 24 hours. She got to me.
Mostly though, I know what it is like to be surrounded by women, older women, women with experience, who have been there…and frankly, these women, they could give a damn that you’re there now, in the trenches. They make you dig your own trench, even if that trench is being dug in the wrong direction. Because they are busy with their own lives, or they feel there is something to be learned by digging a trench alone, which truth be told, teaches you nothing. Digging a trench may make you stronger, endure more, but it doesn’t make you smarter, doesn’t prevent you from making the same mistakes that required the trench digging in the first place.
And while I hate those women, I also want to be them. I don’t have time for this. This 21 year old girl and her problems. My own problems are much bigger. But she got to me.
So I heard her out, she received a talking to, and then we made a plan. We planned how she was going to get through the next 24 hours. Then the next 48. Then the weekend. Come Sunday night, the planning starts anew.
She has my number with strict instructions to call if she needs to melt down. Another thing I don’t have time for and I fervently hope she keeps it together and doesn’t call. But if she does calls, I know I’m sucker enough to answer.
We’ll be meeting for coffee once a week until the end of term. Even if she thinks she’s better, I’ll be the judge and the meetings will stop when I say they stop. Another damn thing I don’t have time for.
By nature, I’m not a particularly good or even nice person. I try, but I usually fail. But Sailor is a nice person, the nicest I know, and I am surrounded by so many nice and good people I wonder why I can’t be the same. My instinct is to take care of myself, my needs, and be selfish with my time. Sure, the girl got to me, but the instinct to pull away remains the same. To not be a nice person. I’m willing to admit that this now, what I’m doing with this girl, is abnormal behavior.
But I’m in it now. I’m hoping for the best. I hope she can pull it around. I know she will because I will make her. I’ve gone out on a limb, now I expect acorns. I’m hoping my involvement remains minimal. I’m hoping this won’t be a massive time suck. I’m hoping there are no more tears.
Because while I want to be a better person, I don’t have the time for it.
7 comments
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April 18, 2009 at 12:36 am
hildigunnur
Weeeellll…
It’s not really a question of being nice
It’s not a question of having time
It’s not even a question of liking the person
It’s the matter of being able to live with oneself.
This last winter I sort of got into talking to this guy, sometimes on irc, sometimes on msn. Pretty irritated with him sometimes, not really wanting to talk. But then this once he was really feeling down. Started talking about killing himself. I spent hours on the net, talking him out of it. He’s now feeling quite a bit better.
Had I brushed him off, and then heard he had taken his own life, I would really have felt horrid.
There will always be time later to do what you need to do (well, almost always, anyway). But you have to be able to live with your choices.
Then, of course, one can’t take upon oneself the sorrows of the world. But being able to do one good deed, it’s just what gives life meaning.
Hope the girl will sort things out, and if she will, believe me, just talking to you and being able to unload will have helped an awful lot!
April 21, 2009 at 12:42 am
Turkish Prawn
BULL…
CRAP!
You are one of the nicest people I know. You might not think that you are, but that actually speaks to your humility and that, my dear, is a good thing. You are loud, boisterous, self assured (which might be mistaken for arrogance by some plebe who doesn’t care to get to know you) but you are a very, very good person. If you weren’t, we wouldn’t be friends. I don’t have time for poopheads, and neither do you. That’s why drinking with you is so much fun!
Having known you for the last few years and worked under you at the hell-hole-which-shall-not-be-named, I can safely say that what bugs you the most is watching someone who’s loosing their shit or going off in a bad direction. You make a good mother duck. A noisy, ill tempered and heavily tattooed mother duck, but a good one, none the less.
This girl will be far better off with you helping her out. Most people are. She might not know it yet, but she’s damned lucky that she caught your eye.
Good on you. I’d expect nothing less.
-Turkish Prawn
April 21, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Andrea
I might not know you super well but after talking to you at EYC for many hours, I think you are a good and decent person with an edge who I wish I saw more often. So there.
April 21, 2009 at 9:40 pm
inmate1972
“So there”? Do I detect a metaphorical sticking out of the tongue?
April 22, 2009 at 12:17 am
Emma
“‘So there’? Do I detect a metaphorical sticking out of the tongue?”
That’s exactly what I pictured when I read that.
April 22, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Andrea
Yes because I’m wicked mature that way.
May 3, 2009 at 3:17 am
girlgriot
“Because while I want to be a better person, I don’t have the time for it.”
Yeah. Exactly. But we make time, don’t we? I hope she gets her shit together … and that you aren’t pulled so deeply into her stuff that your own stuff suffers. You know, and other really specific comments like that.