Queer in Healthcare

On November 9, 2020, covid cases had finally dropped into double digits, from a 5-day triple digit streak, Biden had just secured the next four years in office, Oʻahu moved to tier 2 of reopening, which meant we were allowed to have dinner guests, of up to 4 people, my kids were supposed to be attending school from their computers all day, while I was off at work trying to keep up with the rapidly increasing demand for therapists, while the company I ran skyrocketed, yet on that day: all of this spun into a ball of undecipherable peculiarity. In fact, everything had.

I’ve never been able to remember much about movies I’ve seen, but The Truman Show played, one scene in particular, on a loop, in the forefront of my mind: the very last one. Jim Carrey is finally escaping a world he’s felt bound to his entire life, sailing peacefully away toward the horizon, when his boat hits a wall. He’s reached the end of the set he’s been the main character of, as well as the hard reality that everything and everyone there have been nothing more than props and actors. His entire reality has been a lie. I’d never related to the perceived feeling of a character more than on that morning.

I woke up at 6:00 that Monday morning, as I did on all weekdays, and grabbed a cup of coffee and my phone.I headed to the back to sit in my garden, scroll through social media, and consume my daily dose of caffeine. That had become my morning routine over the last few years, which I knew was less than ideal, but, hey, it was better than the previous whiskey and cigarettes, right?

I scrolled through Instagram and encountered no excitement, especially now that the election was said and done. I checked my instagram messages and, as indicated, there were no new ones waiting to be read. As I sleepily stared at my inbox filled with threads of my fantasy football team making fun of each other, I noticed a tab on the top of the screen, to the right that read: “requests.” There was a red dot next to it. I clicked on it and saw that it was another inbox with unread messages from people I didn’t know. The first message was only from 9 days prior. The sender’s name was Maria. I clicked on it.

“Please call me. (Insert phone number). My name is Maria and I have major news about Jake. You will WANT TO KNOW. I have over 4 years of hard proof if he tries to convince you otherwise. He’s been cheating on you your whole relationship. He comes to Maui to be with me.”

Truman. The boat. The wall that enclosed the set. I looked up from my phone and felt sick. Suddenly, whiskey and cigarettes were being romanticized as a morning routine once again. At least those things were familiar and dependable. I shook the thought from my head, knowing 8 years into sobriety, that the only thing I could depend on those things for was a special kind of hell that would only temporarily hold back the building rogue waves of raw and vehement emotions that were about to pound down upon the shore that was my mind, heart, and soul.

With weak knees and shaking hands, I walked back into the house and stood next to where Jake was sleeping, emotionlessly speaking his name until he opened his eyes and looked at me. “Jake. Jake. JAKE. Who is Maria?” Although my chest felt tight, my voice held up. My eyes remained dry and my face expressionless. I was asking a question with no feeling behind it, only curiosity. Had I really just hit the perimeter of a film set?

His eyes became panicked and he stuttered non-words before managing to say, “that was a long time ago and only happened once.” Queue Truman pounding on the wall at the horizon he’d always known, standing knee deep in water, in the middle of what he’d always seen as the ocean until moments before. Jake clumsily tried to add more, but I shut him out, walking away and pulling up the instagram message I’d thought could possibly be some sick joke. I held my thumb over the phone number and hit, “copy.”

“I’ll let her tell me about it,” I mumbled, already calling her while I walked away, heading back outside. As the phone rang, I felt my heart beating harder and harder against my tightened chest. My breath was shaking, so I knew my voice didn’t stand a chance, but I wasn’t too concerned with keeping my composure now that I knew there was truth in her claim. She answered the phone and I shakily told her who it was. For the first time in 8 months, Covid didn’t exist, distance learning wasn’t a concern, my employment wasn’t essential, anyone aside from myself needing a therapist was of zero concern to me, and I couldn’t trust a single thing I knew to be real.