Of course I dated during those years. I tried my best.
I made genuine efforts to connect with people, to build something meaningful. I met wonderful women who should have been more than enough.
Intelligent, accomplished, kind, beautiful in every way.
Sarah was a medical student I met during my residency. Someone who shared my passion for emergency medicine and understood the insane demands.
We dated for nearly two years.
Elena was an artist I met at a gallery opening. Someone who made me laugh on my worst days and saw the world in fascinating ways.
We were together for eighteen months.
Katie was an elementary school teacher with the kindest heart of anyone I’d ever met. Someone who would have made an incredible partner for the right person.
We dated for a year.
But with all of them, something crucial was always missing. There was always this distance I couldn’t explain or bridge.
This sense that part of me wasn’t fully present or available.
Like my heart had learned how to stay partially closed. Like it had forgotten how to open all the way again.
Like some essential piece of me was permanently reserved for something I’d left behind. Or someone.
I blamed my demanding schedule. The exhaustion that comes with practicing emergency medicine.
The emotional toll of the job. The stress of building a career in a competitive field.
It was easier than admitting the real truth. That I’d left part of myself in a high school parking lot in upstate New York.
And I had absolutely no idea how to get it back.
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