Nesting Doll by Alexis Ellerbe

Alexis Ellerbe is a UTMB medical student.

Notes from the author(s): This piece was inspired by my thoughts on the inner conflict or inner acceptance of being an artist in medicine.

I am a writer trapped in a doctor’s body.
My outer casing adorned with a white coat, running through the hospital with fervent pace.
Running.
Running.
Running.

When just beneath the surface, barely visible in the verbiage of a patient presentation is a storyteller.
Not a recounting of events steeped in antibacterial soap and sterility, but stories of lives that have never existed, and are infinitely messy.
Ink bleeds and stains the paper, permanent markers of temporary fantasies onto which I dared to keep holding.

I am an artist trapped in a writer’s body.

When the words have left me, and my speech has failed me, my hands fill in the spaces.
Sometimes I am incapable of being vibrant, and the only hues my body will produce are silent whispers of pigment.
Other days, yellow is the only color in my repertoire and only in big, bold strokes can I create.
But I have to be careful with the paintings of each of my days.
Sometimes the world needs me to be orange – impassioned, action-oriented, infallibly tangible – and I am unsteadily green, nauseous to the expectations of the day.
Sometimes my yellows are tinged with the heated red of my rage.
Or I am required to put a rose tinted lens over my solemn blues to make it palatable for
an ever-present audience.
But an audience is worth little without a fully charged performer.

I am an adventurer trapped in an artist’s body.

What charges me?
What engages me?
What stimulates me?

How do I become full?
I travel to where there is no performance.
A new and novel experience of just being whoever I think I am, and reveling in it.

I am an optimist trapped in an adventurer’s body.

Where I may explore the inner recesses of my mind, and find a reservoir of hope.
I hope.
Everyday.
Even when it’s the hardest to get out of bed, and when it’s hard enough to just keep
breathing.
Every. Day. I hope.
I hope for a day where my services as a clinician are not needed, because everyone is healthy.

I hope that my stories become obsolete, and “out of touch” because no one knows of that pain that I describe so devotedly.
I hope that my art and my performances engage you, wrap you, hold you with rapt interest, and then set you down gently so that you may go with the knowledge that the spectrum of color exists.

And I hope that you let that knowledge cover your life without ever knowing what it feels like to be without any color at all.

I am a lover trapped in an optimist’s body.

Which is how I know that my hopes are “unrealistic”.
Which is why I temper my optimism with my love for the people around me, and if I know that utopia might be out of reach, then I can make the current landscape just a little bit better.
My performance constantly engaged with, appraised, and held so very tightly.
My stories relatable to many.
My services needed.

And maybe I am not trapped at all.