Showcase: Reflections On My First House Job + Reflection In My Eye + Twin + Urban Reflections + Rule Of 21

Edited by Claire Buckle

In this, my third Showcase, we begin with a piece by Dr Afsana Elanko that captures the immediacy and honesty of a pivotal moment in a career.

Reflections On My First House Job

The first job we have is very special in different ways, as it’s the first time we hold the responsibility  to deliver a set of tasks and get paid for it. There is trepidation for what is expected as, until you start, you don’t really know what you need to do, while also having the knowledge and security of having the required skills set to perform well – after all, you were selected and secured the job!

Now, just think if you also have the responsibility of caring for a number of patients and working in a team that is completely new and you don’t know them and they don’t know you. That was my first thought as I woke up early that Wednesday morning, my first day in my first house job. Yes, I was a qualified doctor.  A career  I had studied for all my life, spent endless hours buried in my books, and fulfilled clinical work on the wards. It had all come to this very day: the day I began work as a doctor. The pressure was immense, the nerves were rife; yet there was also the excitement of knowing I was going to be helping people. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know in which way, but I knew I was going to make a difference, and that was enough.

I still remember vividly the way the consultants, my bosses, greeted me and introduced themselves and then it was straight into work. You had to deliver from the point of starting. I also remember the way the expectations were laid out, which seemed daunting at times but totally manageable, as I knew I wasn’t alone. Reflecting back many years down the line, I have retained the sense I’m not alone and my first bosses are still carrying me. I reflect on the skills they taught me, the belief they had in me as, after all, I was looking after patients they were ultimately responsible for. They showed me life is very precious and it needs to be treated with respect. The colleagues you work with are the family you rely on when delivering care.

They saw things in me I didn’t know I possessed and when they tell me now, “We knew you would go far,” it has much significance for me. The test of time has proved they were right. They knew me better than I knew myself. Only when reflecting back on your life and re-tracing your footsteps, can you truly understand the person you were and the person you have become. The most important thing I’ve learned is that my core values have never changed and this steadfast way of living has made me the person I am today.

© Dr Afsana Elanko, 2025

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Next, a poem by Gloria Maloney, who explains: “My poem is about taking refuge from pain. My narrator allows her soul to synchronise with nature, creating a safe, calming and pain-free state. Upon reflection, she comes to realise her life is as precious as nature and that she is connected to the land in the cycle of life.”

Reflection In My Eye

I walk across the bridge in my mind
Past the gatepost of pain,
into the garden

The orange tree blossoms stretch to the call of the breeze
Another summer of sweet heavenly scent
Red pouting lips, Salvias cheekily dance beneath her bough
Judas tree waves her deep purple handkerchiefs
of promises yet to pass
Moody cornflower blues fold
themselves into the silent corner
A chimera of fairies gathers round them
whispering dream secrets

Flag bearing neuron runner
Stops on the bridge
Rests against the gatepost of pain
Sadness sits on his shoulder

I close the gate
I choose to be unbreakable
Floriography floods my brain
In my mind’s eye the wheel of life turns
Heart
Hearth
Rebirth
The nature of finally healing

© Gloria Maloney, 2025

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Now, a piece of prose from Kimberley Booth, featuring herself looking in the mirror and thinking about what she sees. Each time she checks her reflection, she notices different sides of herself: sometimes confident, sometimes unsure, making her think about who she really is, both inside and out.

Twin

I look in the mirror just after waking up. Eyes bleary and sleep-encrusted. Blurred vision while my electric toothbrush whirs.

I look in the mirror to apply foundation, blush on the apples of my cheeks, my mouth held in a suspended O as I stroke mascara onto my eyelashes.

I look in the mirror as I head out of the house and snap my face into a rictus grin. A trick I read in a self-help book to increase confidence and happiness.

I look in the mirror after using the toilet in a shopping centre. But furtively, quickly, when I’m sure no one will see. I can’t bear the thought that people will think I care, that it matters to me. It feels vulnerable to show any kind of awareness in a hyper-femme environment. As if I am kidding myself.

I look in the mirror in the toilet of the bar. Snap an unsmiling selfie surrounded by art deco-style tiles. Examine dilated pupils while humming.

I look in the mirror before bed. Apply aloe fresh-smelling water to a cotton cloth and carefully remove my make-up. Relishing the ritual. The relief of being home for the night. Make-up off, earrings out, sweats on.

A day segmented by viewing of the self. Or selves, it feels more realistic to say. Always we curate, angle, pose, adjust. Our best view. Our morale boost. Our perceived flaws. Our twin. Often, I feel a complete stranger, even to the self I see. The mirror self is sometimes more real than me. I reach out a finger, feel only the cool glass. I start to see fine lines, indents, marks; a life lived seen on the surface of my face. The face I present to the world. The face I hide behind. The face that’s my constant companion yet still feels alien.

© Kimberley Booth, 2025

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The following poem, by Alex Murdock, is about looking inward and making sense of yourself in a busy world. I’d love to hear it aloud; I’m sure it’d be even more impactful than in print.

Urban Reflections

Is time the ever-growing seed?
driven in the need to be,
fighting for the right to be me,
to unravel like an autumn tree,
like a simile in the vicinity,
they tether my unfriendly,
until it can no longer feel the need,
to breathe,
a sacrifice if it means the end of me,
an enticing debacle,
with a hint of corrosive at the knee,
timidly, I tell my story,
though hidden at the depth,
I’m stained with drains of unapologetically,
destined to be rich by the day like a money tree,
driven by the greens,
they hang to my metaphors like leaves,
all lives,
tired of the trying,
step forth into the beyond like I’m out of time,
silly chimes,
they thought I knew not of my worth,
but in time,
watch these rhymes,
composed in red with a trickle effect,
brewed for the course like wine,
aged with depth.
only then I’m fine,
soothed by the need to not try,
thus I’m fine,
I can only get better with a hint of care and kind,
night like the vision,
written to the stars,
like the milkiest waves,
they carry brainwaves through my tender stage,
treading the crooked ways,
like railways,
if only you knew,
all it took was a look underneath,
then you would see my myelin sheath,
superconductors;
protecting my brain-matter-meat.

© Alex Murdock, 2025

Connect with Alex on Instagram: @themadpo3t, LinkedIn: alex-murdock and via their website: dien.uk

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Our final poem, by Sadie A Shaw, is an honest and moving reflection on naming a child while feeling completely out of control in life.

The Rule Of 21

Did you have a theme for your children’s names?
I didn’t. Not at first. Not until the third.
Then I noticed a pattern.
A pattern of 21.
My eldest and second born’s names: 8, 6, 7 = 21. Then 9, 5, 7 = 21.
But the plan for the third’s name? 5, 7, 7 = 19. That wouldn’t do. I couldn’t have that. I
needed to stick to the magic number. Needed a name with seven letters.
It sounded ridiculous to everyone else. My partner, my parents, his parents. But to me, it felt
like fate. Like destiny.
I was born on the 21st. My mother was married on the 21st. Both my grandfathers were born
on the 21st.
Twenty-one felt like an important number, like they were looking down on me. I don’t
believe in heaven, but honouring the number felt right. Like a tether to something bigger than
me, when I was barely holding it together.
So Oscar had to go. It was too short. And honestly, I’d already fallen out of love with it.
We’d chosen it early, back when we were still pretending everything was OK. I was
recovering from major surgery, a bowel resection, just six months earlier. I’d finally started a
new job, a nine-month maternity cover role to gain experience. I was unhappy in my
marriage and thinking seriously about leaving.
Then one night. Just one. That’s all it took.
I found out I was pregnant six weeks into the new job. I sat on the toilet, test in hand, crying.
I sent a photo of the stick to my best friend and begged her: “Please tell me I’m seeing things.”
I wasn’t.
I walked into the bedroom where my husband was asleep, and woke him up, sobbing. He
held me and said, “It’ll be OK.” But it wasn’t.
I tried to hold on to the hope that this one would be a girl. I always wanted a daughter. I
decided not to find out the sex. I’d suffered depression after learning my second was a boy,
and I hoped that waiting until the birth might protect me. That I’d fall in love at first sight, like I did with him.
I went through the motions. Attended the appointments. But I felt no connection to the baby
growing inside me. I didn’t want it. I hated myself for feeling that way.
Then came the news that my sister-in-law was pregnant too, due two months after me. Her
first baby. A girl.
The day they sent me the gender reveal video, I was in a work meeting. I watched it at the
table and broke inside. I knew then, in my gut, that mine wasn’t a girl. I needed to know for
sure.
At my next scan, 32 weeks along, I asked.
It was a boy. I broke down in that scan room.
People told me, “As long as it’s healthy” and I nodded, because that’s what you’re supposed to say. But I was grieving. I grieved for the life I’d thought I’d have: shopping trips, spa days, a best friend for life. A daughter. I needed to mourn that before I could move on.
The midwife asked me if I wanted to consider adoption. Maybe my parents could take the
baby, she said gently. But I couldn’t. Not for me, I was breaking, but for my husband, for my
other children. They wanted him.
I was put on a waiting list for counselling but didn’t get to the top until after he was born.
That’s a story for another day.
Through all of this, we’d stuck with Oscar. I liked Ozzy. It had edge. It felt cool.
But then came the comments. My in-laws wrinkled their noses. “I like Oscar but not Ozzy.”
Then came the name slips: calling him “Ollie” instead. More than once. My sister-in-law
already had a nephew named Ollie. My cousin’s son was called Ollie. The baby wasn’t even
born yet, and already he was getting lost.
That’s when I noticed the pattern.
That’s when I found the number 21.
That’s when I decided to change his name.
I wasn’t changing the middle name, that was after my favourite singer, and it mattered to me.
The surname matched his siblings. Seven letters. So, I needed a first name with seven letters
too.
It gave me focus when everything else felt out of control. I made lists. I searched baby name
websites like it was a second job. I considered Dominic, Nicolas, Finnley,
Maxwell, Cameron.
We agreed on Dominic, briefly. I liked Nico. It was modern, soft, honoured my Italian
ancestry. But my husband refused. Said he’d only call him “Dom.” And no offence to the
Doms of the world, but that’s not what I wanted for my baby.
Then I found it, a name from one of my favourite YA books. Obscure, but special. It had the
“nic” sound I loved, but at the end. It could be shortened to a common, popular name. And,
most importantly, it was seven letters.
Some people love it. Others don’t. That’s OK.
What matters is this: choosing his name gave me power when I felt powerless. It gave me
purpose when everything else felt like it was falling apart. It helped me start to love a baby I
didn’t want.
And now, he is 7, 7, 7.
He is mine.
He is 21.

© Sadie A Shaw, 2025

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I hope these reflections have touched you in some way. Please join me next week for my final Showcase, where there’ll be more to discover and share.

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Connect with Claire on Instagram: @cloubuckle, Threads: @cloubuckle and on Facebook: Claire Buckle.

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