:: Closing Time ::

:: Thursday, August 08, 2002 ::

tri·age   Pronunciation Key  (tree-äzh', tree'äzh)
n.
1. A process for sorting injured people into groups based on their need for or likely benefit from immediate medical treatment. Triage is used in hospital emergency rooms, on battlefields, and at disaster sites when limited medical resources must be allocated.
2. A system used to allocate a scarce commodity, such as food, only to those capable of deriving the greatest benefit from it.
3. A process in which things are ranked in terms of importance or priority: “For millions of Americans, each week becomes a stressful triage between work and home that leaves them feeling guilty, exhausted and angry” (Jill Smolowe).

tr.v. tri·aged, tri·ag·ing, tri·ag·es

To sort or allocate by triage: triaged the patients according to their symptoms.

(FYI Alex, this means your use was completely grammatically correct).

An interesting choice of words - as DeSantis said, these blogs have opened up a whole new level of communication. Never before would one sentance or word written by somebody prompt a response roughly equvivilent to an english paper. That is, in length and complexity.

Alex has a lot less time than I do, since he leaves on the 17th and I leave at the earliest on the 24th (I don't have to be there till the 29th, but my family may be going down early for vacation). I really, sincerly hope that 17th is at all flexible, because for any of you who don't know yet I'm planning on having something of a farewell party on the night of the 17th, because that's the one day where three of my closest friends are overlapping in their wellesleyboundness. One returns that day and another leaves the next, and a third is working out a trip around it. I haven't quite figured out the details yet so I haven't invited people, yet.

I'm on a tangent though - (doesn't THAT happen in my blog enough....) - back to triage. It was an interesting choice of words, in that triage has a pretty two-faced connotation. The idea is on the surface to allocate to those with the most need - i.e. to see people you haven't seen much or recently when discussing relationships. That seems all fine and good except for the caveat that you ignore those who likely will not benefit - relationships you're willing to just let die because you don't care enough about specifics.

Thinking about it, I definately see it crashing down on all around us. I see people triaging left and right. Some people I'm not seeing, it's a need based thing - I can think of one person specifically who I haven't seen much because he's been seeing all sorts of other people, but that's because I'm quite certain there's no dire need. We're good friends and that's clear; nothing silly like college is going to interfere with that. But with others.... there's the backhanded triage going on. Two, three, four, maybe five people I can think of quickly who I'm not seeing much at all (make that six) because their valuble time seems wasted on me. That sucks because it's not a reciprocal feeling, but I guess I don't really have a choice. Relationship triage falls to the lowest common denominator... "we" are only important as whichever of us cares least. I find myself caring more most of the time, and that care seems wasted. Sometimes even misplaced.

Are you cutting ties? I've tried to do things like cut ties to school, but mostly I've tried to strengthen ties to people. People I won't see again, people whose faces I know I may see five times for -the rest of my life-. Fast examples, Chris DeSantis and Juli Weiner, both of whom I've been talking to a whole lot more. Real people I'm never going to see again after this summer. Chris? I haven't even seen him this summer. They're not the only ones though. I've been trying to build bridges with everyone, cause in the next few weeks those bridges are going to be stretched over long distances. But you can't build a bridge from one side - just watch a construction crew. You've got to start on both ends, because once you extend one end past the middle the stress on it gets to be too much and it collapses under it's own weight.

If you've put me aside, triaged me down into the lower echelon.... if you mean it, that's your right. But I'm hoping for some of you it may not have been intentional. Hoping some of you didn't mean to sever ties. The reality is I know most of you did. But again, like most of the things I write here.... if even one of you reaches out again, then it was worth it. Writing it all, answering all the questions I inevitably get pointed at me for things I write. And maybe even the negative impression people are going to get from this.

I guess it's the first negative blog I've written in a while.
:: Peter 12:16 PM [+] ::
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