Chorizo Breakfast Taco
This breakfast was a winner. I was happy to surprise Keshav with it, as sometimes when using what I have on hand in the fridge, the breakfasts can be a bit unimaginative. This recipe is the complete opposite of that, though, combining red bell pepper and chorizo with scrambled eggs, all stuffed inside a tortilla that has been heated in a skillet over a circle of pepper jack cheese. The cheese browns and crisps in a way that is so yummy! He ate the whole thing.
I like starting his day with something made with love, as he is never sure what kind of day he is going to have. When you work in the ED, the patients are often dysregulated and/or mentally unstable. They are scared and impatient, and when you throw in a department that does not have enough staff, well, let's just say that the behaviors he sees are not always respectful or appreciative.
Initially he loved the stimulation of the ED, but now I think he is getting the feeling that working there is not sustainable over the long run--the reason so many nurses and doctors suffer from burnout. This makes me sad, because nurses are well-trained and just trying to help. When did people become so demanding and rude? Maybe they act on the example set from the top, you know, the leadership we have in the country that behaves like insecure school bullies at best, contemptuous sociopaths at worst.
This makes me glad that my husband is attempting to get into a doctorate nursing program, because this will widen his options for the future and give him leverage to work in healthier settings. At the very least, he gets to start his workday on a positive note when I feed him breakfast.
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I have been reading up on how to find purpose in life. It seems that there is a "crisis of meaning" today, especially in younger folks. I don't mean to imply that purpose and meaning are the same thing, but they are somewhat related, at least in their ability to give one a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
There have been three primary periods in my life when I have lost purpose and struggled with depression as a result. The first time was when I was around 15 years old, and as I became aware of my attraction to boys, my world turned upside down. The problem was that nobody could tell, because I could not let them see. Imagine finding out that everything you knew about yourself and about how life worked were suddenly in jeopardy, and you may get a sense of what I was feeling at the time. I was utterly alone in my peril, because who could I tell about this?
This is when I started listening to Barry Manilow's This One's For You album over and over in my room. There is a song on the album called "All The Time" that felt as though it were written to me directly. The lyrics told the story of a person not realizing that all the time there was another person who was just like him, and the regret at how long he did not know about this.
All the time I thought there's only me
Crazy in a way that no one else could be
I would have given everything I own if someone would have said you're not alone.
Songwriters: Barry Manilow / Martin Panzer/All the Time lyrics © Universal Music - Careers, Swaneebravo Music
My father once told me that he thought that listening to Barry Manilow music turned me gay. I have to laugh when I think back on that crazy idea, because I doubt that, if one were to "turn" gay, it would be because of Barry Manilow. But listening to his music was how I dealt with my depression--hours and hours of melancholy music in my room, wishing I didn't know what I was beginning to know.
The second time I felt depressed was in my late 30's, when my performing career seemed to stall. I had just become an Equity actor with the successful show Naked Boys Singing!, and I thought that now was the time I would become someone in theater. But I didn't. Becoming a union performer only meant that there was more competition from performers more talented than I, in addition to more risk in casting because you have to pay union actors more money. I was also in a static relationship, and I didn't know what to do if the things I defined myself by no longer felt available to me. I became very angry.
The third time I dealt with depression was more recently, as I entered my 60's. My body started to change in ways that were not unexpected but I didn't like, and I actually had to have two surgeries to fix minor issues that come with aging. My sex drive plummeted, and though I was in a good relationship I did not feel sexy or sexual anymore. I felt that it was too soon for me to be feeling these things, and my depression came out of the unanswered question: What now?
Purpose was easier to feel when I was young. Either that or I had so many dreams I didn't have to think about it. I knew I wanted to be a successful theater performer, and then a successful therapist, and before both those things I wanted to be in love. But what happens when you achieve your goals? What gets you out of bed once that happens?
The stoics used to say that the biggest philosophical problem was suicide--primarily in finding a reason to not do it. They argued that if life is meaningless and hard, why not just end it rather than spend years suffering? Believe it or not, this was an optimistic view at the time, because it prompted those who aligned with it to find a reason or two to live! The idea that life means nothing can be a positive motivation if you think about it--I have known many people who struggle to thrive when living lives pre-loaded with meaning.
Some say that the only time we are looking for meaning is when we are not living in the present moment. This is why I practice mindfulness--because when I successfully live in the moment there is no need to find meaning--the meaning is in the living.
But purpose is another thing--it used to be baked into life based on our interdependence on each other. Hunter-gatherers rarely had to think about why they were alive--they probably felt lucky to be alive, and they found purpose in the needs of the group they lived with and relied upon.
There is much less interdependence today, or at least it is less visible. The people I depend on are largely not in my life--the farmers who grow the food I eat, the builders of the apartment I live in, the people who made my clothes. I don't have to do anything to keep society going, I could sit in the apartment all day and do just fine. I think this is why people are seeking a sense of purpose today--because it is no longer provided by the cultures we live in.
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The other night at dinner I asked Keshav what his vision was for 10 and 20 years from today, and he told me that he does not have one. He said that he has achieved everything he set out to do, and if he were to die tomorrow he would not be sad about it. This completely threw me. As someone who is nearly twice his age, I know that there is more of value to living than just "achieving your goals". I know Keshav knows this too, but he told me that he is happy, so maybe he knows better than me? He said that his greatest accomplishment was getting married to me. When I heard this, the question that came to me was, "Can one have a satisfying life without purpose?"
Is purpose necessary if your life is meaningful enough on a day-to-day basis? Would we even be thinking about these things if we just slowed down and lived our lives as they were unfolding?
I just ordered a book called Don't Meditate Just Be: The Pathless Path to Spiritual Enlightenment. The title intrigues me. What if I am looking for something only because I think there is something to be found? What if I try to just be?
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