Nostalgia

There are some things that give me a nostalgic feeling that almost bring me to tears. Often those feelings are tied to books.

When I was a little girl, we had some book, perhaps it was

It had a picture of a little black-and-white cat in an English garden.  I loved that picture, and when I see Oliver in the yard, surrounded by flowers, my heart overflows with love for him--my sweet little kitten in the garden.

I like to read the blog Luxarrazi, which is all about the Luxembourg and Lichtenstein royal families.  These are Catholic countries, and they are often having big events with their cardinal or archbishop or something.  That august person usually looks like this:

with the big tiara (mitre?  beats me, I'm not Catholic), and the shepherd's crook.  And that, even though I'm not Catholic, brings me back to a book I really loved when I was little (and still love)

I think that's where I originally saw that kind of image, and it brings such a warm, happy feeling to me that I think I might try to hug that person if I ever saw him in person.  (Which would probably be creepy on a number of levels.)

Today, I had another strong feeling of nostalgia (non-book-related), and I almost teared up.  I was able to go into the OR and perform a procedure.  The IR suite isn't quite the same--we wash and gown up beforehand, but not in the same way as the OR.  There's something so special to me about the OR and surgery.  Perhaps if I had completed my medical training earlier in life, I would've become a surgeon, rather than an interventional radiologist.

As I was traveling home from work today, I was thinking about why I felt that way. I think it's because the OR is similar to the temple, and it feels sacred to me.  Here are the similarities I though of:

1)  You have to be worthy to enter.
2)  There is ritual washing.
3)  You are dressed in special ceremonial clothing.
4)  You are doing something that someone cannot do for themselves.
5)  If you're in the right frame of mind, you're in partnership with God.

Maybe that is why something about the OR reaches into my heart and tugs at it in a special way that I can best describe as nostalgia.  Don't get me wrong--my current job is perfect for me, and surgical training would've been a disaster for me to try to go through when I was a resident.  But I will always be just a little jealous of my surgery colleagues, and I will always have that tender feeling when I have the opportunity to join them in the operating room.