Why you should never ever get drunk with your preceptor- April 27 - 30 and May 4, 2003

If your former preceptor asks you to hang and grab a drink with him, you go. Why? It is the right thing to do? It is hard to say why because you know at this point it is not required and you don’t necessarily want to go because you have a headache. Normally, drinking gives you a headache, but what if drinking is the cure to this headache? You are performing an experiment now. So, you go and since you are already out, and despite your better judgement which you are not sure you even had to begin with, you also have a martini. You justify the martini because being around him makes you nervous. He insists on driving you back home so he can talk to you alone because there was no way you were having drinks with him without backup also known as Shannon W. Getting in his car you are already regretting the martini because the experiment backfired and now your head is hurting so much that it has made you nauseous, so you puke all over yourself and his car while the former preceptor is driving 70 plus miles an hour down highway 64. You may also puke again the moment he gathers the strength to blurt out that he has feelings for you. You may forget to return the sentiment because of all the puking but mostly it is the having no idea what to say part. That is the reason why you are silent. The thing is, maybe you started out thinking he was cute but never ever in the history of your world has someone you thought was cute really liked you back, so this puke covered moment of silence never seemed like a possibility. You are in foreign territory and realized that you don’t speak the language. There are no words or phrases in your vocabulary that can ease the awkwardness of this situation. So, you just apologize, a lot, and feel really bad that the former preceptor has your puke all down the side of his car and he has to go to work at a rehab center the next morning. You continue to feel bad when you realize that that not only does he have to see and smell your puke, but he has to wash it off his car with his feelings still hanging in the pukey air. None of this feels romantic or right because you know there is a woman he lives with and has lived with for 9 plus years. So, he probably should not have said anything. But he did…

None of this seems to matter when he calls you at 9 am on a Saturday morning just to say he broke up with his girlfriend. You experience a total lack of words, again, and luckily, he seems to be used to this by now. He says he just wanted to let you know and to have a good day at work. You are hearing these words while sitting on the blood pressure machine at Eckerd in stunned silence waiting for the pharmacist to arrive and open up the pharmacy. You feel sick, again. The technician you are working with that day, Ajay, sees your face and seems to know exactly what happened and is now laughing at you because he has told you all along this was going to happen. You have to think about if you really have feelings for the former preceptor and whether to pursue something, remains friends, or end the madness. You have been in a vicious pattern of wanting to go see the former preceptor but then not wanting the pressure or potential for intimate moments. This pattern and puking unfortunately is not new to you. Well, the nausea is not new. Mister Ghost caused a lot of nausea without all the puking. Anyway, no time to analyze this, your options as you see them right now are A. Sit and talk with former preceptor about situation but then that becomes a perfect opportunity for an intimate moment and possibly more puking. B. Run C. Always hang out with others and alcohol present to ease intimacy issue if it were to present. Well aware that option A is the healthy choice but will go with C for the time being because you are not sure that your brain came with the ability to follow so called better judgement and there is always safety in numbers. Please, we need a sign.

Then suddenly you are also at the end of your 8-month rotations. This wacky pharmacy vacation is finally over and after being on the road and meeting tons and tons of people, more than you have ever met in your entire life, these past three days your world has been reduced to one. He has told you how he feels about you one drunken Monday night. He said things to you that seemed so heartfelt and powerful that big surprise, you were left with no words. You wish you were as sure as he is. He is so sure that he wants to spend more time with you and to have you move to be with him. There has been so much puke you are not sure why he wants this. Plus, you are about to start your life as a pharmacist and that is what you need to focus on. You have made commitments to Eckerd and to live with your sister and Monte. You need to focus on this and as much as you have longed for a boyfriend during these 8 months, this is just not the right time. Boys will have to come later and certainly not above your own previous commitments. You didn’t work this hard to become an independent pharmacist worker woman just to follow a man. Right? Help!

So, how do you know you are in love? I had no idea and neither did Sean, but he seemed eager to discuss it on a Wednesday night. He said, well, let’s go out and talk about it. He said we would figure it out and suggested that we meet at Lucy’s. The only reason I liked Lucy’s was because they somehow had Bath and Body Works Sweet Pea lotion in a dispenser in their bathroom. What a treat! After helping myself to the lotion, I catch Sean up as he giggles the entire time. I should know but I don’t what the L stands for in Area L (the area I was assigned to for pharmacy rotations for 8 months of my life) and Sean would call it different things like Area 51 and Zone 9. At the end of all the giggling I say, so “maybe I found love in Area L?” and Sean responded with “so, that is what the L stands for! “

If I needed to ask, then I wasn’t in love, right? Who could diagnosis me? I hoped Sean would tell me he had been in love before so he could share with me all the potential signs and symptoms. But no, he was no help. He did listen to every word I said, and it was comforting just being there with him listening to me. We were sitting outside when it started raining. We were the only people who didn’t have to go back in because we were under a giant tree that shielded us from the rain. It was just the two of us sharing a cigarette in silence. I love silence as you know, but this was a comfortable silence where I wasn’t freaking out in my head that I actually needed to be speaking. Then Sean went to the bathroom, and I had a moment alone. I am not sure if it was all the love talk or the drinks but, in that moment, I was still very present. There was absolutely nowhere else I would rather be and I have never felt that before. I am always somewhere else in my head. And that is when I realized that I just had my pinecone moment. Maybe. Have you seen the Sound of Music? Captain von Trapp tells Maria that he first started loving her at the dinner table when she sat on that “ridiculous pinecone”. It was the point of no return. Maybe this was happening with the former preceptor so that I could really see Sean? Was this how I would find love? I certainly had no idea but under that tree in the rain I knew that I wanted to be as close to Sean as possible and I always wanted a safe distance between myself and the former preceptor. Sean didn’t make me feel like puking and somehow puking had become the barometer for my feelings. This can’t be normal. Can it? I need to find someone else to ask…