i just don't know what to do anymore i’m so tired of this i’m like twenty one almost twenty two and i feel like i’m eighty just drained all the time and it’s always about him and his feelings when is it ever about mine when can i just be me without having to worry about someone else's mood you know i mean he used to be so proud of me like when i got into med school and when i started my residency he was like my biggest cheerleader he’d brag to his friends all the time about me how i was going to be this amazing surgeon saving lives and stuff he even bought me this really expensive watch when i finished my first year of residency it was this really nice silver one with a blue face i still have it but i haven't worn it in months but lately it's just different i don’t know when it started maybe a few months ago after my first solo surgery everything just kind of shifted i was so excited i came home at like 9pm that night just buzzing telling him everything about the patient how the procedure went so smoothly how the lead surgeon said i did an amazing job and he just like… grunted from the couch he was playing some video game i forget which one probably the one with the dragons and he didn’t even look at me he just said 'that's nice honey' and went back to his game like my biggest moment was just… nothing it’s been like that ever since i mean i get it i’m working a lot of hours sometimes i’m gone from 5am to midnight or even later i hardly get any sleep and i’m on call every third weekend and i barely see him sometimes for days i know it’s hard but this is my dream this is what i’ve worked my entire life for and he used to understand that he used to say he’d support me no matter what that we were a team and now it’s just like i'm the enemy the other day i was supposed to be home by 7pm i even promised him we’d watch that new show on netflix together the one with the robots but i got held up with an emergency appendectomy it was really complicated it took like three hours longer than expected so i didn’t get home until almost 11pm and he was just sitting there in the dark on the couch with the tv off like a statue i walked in and he just slowly turned his head to me and said 'nice of you to finally show up' and i was just like speechless i tried to explain but he cut me off he said 'i don’t care what excuse you have this time you always have an excuse' and he just went to bed and didn’t say another word to me all night and then yesterday it was even worse i had a super intense week i’d been on call for 48 hours straight no real sleep just coffee and adrenaline and i finally had a few hours off so i thought i’d surprise him i picked up his favorite pizza from that place downtown the one with the pepperoni and the extra cheese and i got a six-pack of his preferred craft beer and i came home hoping for a quiet night hoping we could just connect again you know and he was in the living room and he saw the pizza and the beer and he just said 'oh great more junk food i suppose you think that makes up for everything' and he just walked away into the bedroom and slammed the door i just stood there holding the pizza box like an idiot the steam going cold the beer sweating in my hand and i just felt this wave of like… pure exhaustion wash over me i didn’t even cry i just felt empty like all the fight was gone from me i put the pizza on the counter and the beer in the fridge and i just went to bed and stared at the ceiling for hours thinking about all of it all the resentment all the subtle jabs all the cold shoulders and i just wondered how much longer i can keep this up i want to be a surgeon more than anything in the world this is everything to me but i also want to be happy i want to have a partner who celebrates my successes who understands that sometimes life gets in the way but it feels like i have to choose between my career and him and i don’t know how to make that choice i don’t know if i even can it’s like i’m losing myself either way like i’m just supposed to abandon everything i’ve worked for or just accept that i’ll be alone in this even when he’s right here beside me in this bed it feels like i’m already alone anyways