Sentiment Sunday {Ambivalence}

It’s time once again for Sentiment Sunday. This has been a rough week here in my world; I decided to channel some of my feelings into an art journal layout and the idea for this month’s sentiment presented itself.
am-biv-a-lence [am-biv–uh-luh-ns]
noun
1. uncertainty or fluctuation, especially when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things.
2. Psychology . the coexistence within an individual of positive and negative feelings toward the same person, object, or action, simultaneously drawing him or her in opposite directions.

I work in a pediatric ICU. You’ll easily pick out my simultaneous desires in my journalling. It’s hard to read in this format, so I’ll share it with you.

“On August 12, 2013, one of my patients lost her battle for life. . . four months to the day she first came to us. We don’t usually have patients with us for that long. They usually come in, recover and are gone again before most of us are even aware of them. When we do have long-term patients, we all get to know them and their families and have a stake in their outcomes. It seemed like the ending to this story had been written at the beginning and her struggles to recover were doomed to fail. Her stay with us was filled with complications, pain, fear and uncertainty but it was also filled with love and hope. Those of us who’ve been around a long time knew that she wouldn’t leave us alive, but couldn’t talk about that. We had to stay positive and upbeat for her and her family. When the end came, it was almost a surprise, because she’d been holding her own and maybe even improving a bit. Some days are just so hard. When the scales tip from holding on to letting go, how does one reconcile the contradictory mixture of grief and rejoicing that brings… and maintain one’s willingness to try again? I’m not sad that she died, I’m happy that she’s no longer suffering. But I feel such sorrow for her family, who never gave up, who lived in her room day in and day out, who worried about the nurses who cared for their girl. . . How can they put their lives back together now? How can we, the providers of care, turn around and do this all again with the next patient like her? We will. . . of course we will. It’s who we are. We’ll give our hearts to the next little person whose path is all up hill and feel the same shattering pain when they fall.”

This time of year is filled with ambivalent feelings. Summer is ending, the school year beginning. How many of us have been so choked up that our “baby” is starting school, but at the same time really looking forward to a few hours to ourselves? And then there’s the segue from the heat and humidity of summer into the cool crispness of autumn… we’re sad to see summer ending but eager to embrace the departure of sweating glasses and sunburns. My layout is a bit more melancholy than all that, but I just know each of you have had some ambivalence in your lives that you can chronicle. Post your layouts in the Trixie Scraps Gallery and share them with the rest of us, won’t you please? ~Jan