New Girl

The music: Anything, and everything, by Puccini, as sung tonight by Andrea Bocelli.
The wine: Windwhistle Cabernet, a gift, and lovely, but not as good as last night's Columbia Crest 2009 Cabernet, also a gift. Every gift should be wine, I think.

Around my neck, I wear a St. Christopher medal, engraved on the front "St. Christopher, pray for us" and on the back, "Ma Cher." Curled up next to me, my dear familiar, my very senior, forever young cat Bel. She missed me today, and even more than usual, patters after me and rubs me for attention. The medal, a reminder from one of my nearest and dearest, that I am not the first to face challenges, that to face them with humor and grace is an accomplishment in itself, that I am loved not for what I do but for who I am. Both remind me that I am not as alone in this world as I always feel myself to be.

For I am The New Girl. Perennially, it would seem. I have just completed another First Day, and I like to tell myself I completed it with grace and dignity. I am new somewhere about every fifteen minutes. You'd think I would be better at it by now. At some point, you'd think I would stop tripping over my own feet, others feet, the feet of innocent passersby. All of this is figurative of course, not literal. Well, most of it.

A day with 20 levels of user names and passwords, none of which worked or gave me access without assistance. A day where I was issued a key to the wrong door, got locked out of my own office with no way to get to my own phone to call for help, could not remember the path back to the hospital wing with the staff refrigerator where I left my lunch and got no caloric input or even a sip of water, because yea verily, I could not find a drinking fountain.

A day, during which my office phone was not installed, my notebook computer had print so tiny I developed severe forward head posture trying to read it, had an exacerbation of thoracic outlet syndrome and my arm went numb trying to figure out how to find patient files I desperately need to read before I shake the patient's hand in the morning. A day during which I spent precious hours on the phone with a cheeky teen in technical support, who at one point suggested, and I quote, "find a pen and write all this down." I did not explain I was locked out of my office, lost, hungry, thirsty and walking through the halls speaking on a cell phone I was not supposed to be on because my phone had not been installed, and when he called me back with an answer, he caught me in, yes, I'm woman enough to say it: the Little Therapist's room.

That's DOCTOR Can't Log On Without Technical Support to you, Son.

And no, I cannot find a pen, just now.

In between bouts of New Girl-ness, short pop-ins on my staff, to shake hands, to make sure everything in their day was going well, to remind them of reports I have just discovered needed to be submitted last week to assure Medicare payment (which I know because I've been here a full 15 minutes and managed to review scheduling and the tickler file), faxes and calls to referral sources for continuing orders. I know that tomorrow I will wake up and remember more than I think I will. I always do. The brain is amazing that way, and learns better under stress than we think it does.

And yet, I know all of this will get better. In a few days, I will no longer be the new girl, banging into corners that aren't supposed to be there, unable to finish simple tasks without asking questions because everything, everyone, everywhere, is new. Once again, I will feel myself competent, a fish IN water. I will not blink twice when my supervisor introduces me as "The Balance Whiz" and I will not wonder why everyone always thinks I am a "whiz." I am proud that today, I did have the presence of mind to be fully present, even for short moments, with the patients and staff for whom I am now responsible.

Because that is the one thing I am able to do, I think, be fully THERE when I am there. When you are in front of me, nothing else matters, nothing. Take my hands, look in my eyes, tell me where it hurts. I cannot log in, dial out, fax over, or tell you where I parked, but I CAN do THAT. I know that like St. Christopher of Assisi, I can hold still in the moment and the little bird will land on my hand.

And when I can finally find my way reliably back from the bathroom and log in to get my email, I will no longer be The New Girl. St. Christopher, pray for me.