Friday, August 16, 2013

My compass.

For the past few weeks I have been feeling a little more tired than usual.  A little slower in my step.  A little less eager to crawl out of bed.  Nothing serious, nothing debilitating, just constant.  It makes a lot of sense when you think about the decisions that are being made right now.  My friends and I are deciding just where we want to be for the next 3-5 years (residency).  

We are compiling our lives onto sheets of paper and sending them to the people we admire most and hoping, just hoping, that they say they admire us too.  Enough to write us a stellar letter of recommendation.  Enough to say that they would love to keep us as their own resident if they could.

We are pouring our hopes and dreams into a personal statement.  ONE PAGE that is supposed to outline who we want to be as a physician.  What we think we can contribute to a program if they choose us.  What we want to contribute to the field of medicine.

And then we seal it up, kiss it for good luck, send it into cyberspace... and we wait...

I spent some time trying to flesh out just why this was weighing on me more than it has in the past.  I have gone through this process several times before.  Undergrad applications, grad school applications, scholarship applications, internship applications, med school applications.  Sheesh... it should be like second nature to me now, right?  But this time is different.

I don't have my compass.

This morning it became clear to me, actually after watching this video (watch the first 4 mins) that my point B has been taken away.  This is actually pretty common in life, maybe best visualized in nature.  I saw it when I was watching baby birds on what seemed to be a suicide mission in my backyard this summer.  Mom says it's time (chirps it's time?) and babies start jumping.  I kind of wanted to catch them - their wings just didn't seem ready.  But they didn't come back, and the neighborhood cats didn't seem any fatter, so I am gonna call it a win for those baby birds.  Point being - we all start making decisions and moving forward without our parents.  But that isn't what is hard for me.  It is not having the option.

My mom was my compass.  My guide down the rough and bumpy road of life.  She had literally seen it all, the hardest things that life can throw at a person, and she still faced each day with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face.  She pushed me.  She gave me hope and she told me not to give up.  I have never gone through an application process without her.  I have never faced these difficult decisions without her.

So here I stand, on the edge of my nest.  My wings feel a little bit weak.  My heart is beating a little bit fast.  But in the back of my mind I just have to play her words of encouragement from the past on repeat.  I have to remember that she has loaded my toolbox with skills that didn't leave when she did.

Most importantly, I have to know that when I reach into my pocket, I will find my compass.

It has been there all along.