𝟐𝟏 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞, 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐦𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐲
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[𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟎] 𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐀𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐲

I was sitting in the car today with a friend of mine, talking about God. Whether we believe in God, whether we’re just robots, or whether there’s a spark of something more. I used to think I had a good handle on my answer: I’m an atheist, and it would be nice to have a belief, but I just don’t have any evidence that there’s a bigger picture. Also I get annoyed that people need more than this unfathomably complex universe. Also, if we’re just robots, isn’t it incredible that we’re walking around loving each other as we do?

But then there are the times on shift when I’m handed what the marketer Perry Marshall would call a ‘memo from head office’. I need to ask a junior doctor a second time how they're doing because the answer turns out to be ‘not well’. Or I need to do a set of observations because something big is going to happen. Or I need to hide in someone’s room and make up their IV drugs there because that’s the only way I’m going to do them on time and also it feels right to be in there - and then the client discloses something really important. And yes I know that gut instinct could be just compounded experience that flashes up as a feeling when there’s no time to think things through. But still, it feels more like a reward for having put hours in, like the career is moving up to meet you. It doesn't feel explainable in rational terms.

I've recently discovered Kurt Vonnegut. He was an atheist and a humanist. He wrote Slaughterhouse Five which is as good a novel about PTSD as you could hope to find. It’s about the bombing of Dresden and uses the concept of a soldier who is unstuck in time to examine how trauma can cause a shattered narrative of life. In the book's prologue, he says ‘I don't want to throw away any sacred things. What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance. And all music.’ I feel that way about being with clients. It is all sacred, even when it’s covered in shit and blood (perhaps more so). It’s sacred, even when it’s hurting. It’s sacred, even though I’m an atheist.

The older I get, the more I realise I don’t have answers. Especially given the NHS staffing crisis, and never knowing what might next happen at work, I am in a constant state of inquiry. But isn’t this the most sensible way to be? Nothing else in life comes with guarantees and a certain answer. Parenting, making dinner, writing assignments, having sex. Even maths problems are best approached without assuming you know everything already. And in the hunt for answers comes the meaning.

All experience is valid and important. We shouldn't throw any of it away. The big factors that are hitting me in my personal and professional life right now are: time, the passage of it and what getting older means; trauma, why it happens, whether it has a function, and if so, how to assimilate it into our lives; and vicarious resilience, which is resilience that you have access to based on being in someone’s company. Over the next 21 days, I will be exploring these ideas by writing about midwifery. The realisations I come to while writing help me at work and work helps me to write. I hope you'll find it helpful too. Look out for a piece of writing every weekday in September.

All my best,

Ellie.