CPE is Over

It's been a particularly odd day. CPE ended yesterday and I feel as if I've stepped from one planet onto another. The world is so different today. My supervisor told us how the summer's experience would be "cumulative." The pile up of tragedy has been getting to me the last few days. Today, with the responsibility of caring for all those sick people suddenly lifted, with the absence of my badge and my pager gone, I feel a strange loss. I do not feel relief. I'm all too aware that the hospital is still full of people, some of whom I came to care a great deal about.

I haven't gotten much done today. Played lots of solitaire. Watched a few movies. Went to see Bourne Ultimatum and out to dinner with my friend Linda. But during the movie, all I could think about was that all those people who were beating up on each other and jumping through windows and off buildings would never have been able to walk away from those situations. They would be in the hospital having multiple surgeries at the very least. Most would be dead.

It has been a very long 11 weeks.