I know, I've been quiet. It's because I've had the opposite of a holiday; rather, it's been a busy enough weekend at work and I've been prioritizing sleep enough that blogging has fallen by the wayside. I've still been doing my writing that I do strictly for me but that's been as much as I've been able to accomplish.
An idea popped into my head the other day, and I haven't had the chance to do anything about it yet. The theme related to missed opportunities and the possibility of second chances. I admit that the idea comes from my own reevaluation of all of the facets of my life, from being able to step back and admit that maybe some of the things I've been fighting against the most are things that I want but that I've been afraid to ask for. While I don't have any regrets about the way I've done things, that doesn't mean I don't look back and wonder about missed opportunities. A few different decisions here and there- both by me and by people who were important at that time- what would they have meant? What would I have that I don't have now? Would I be complete, happy, authentic?
I honestly don't know the answer to any of those things, and I'm certain that I love my current life enough that I wouldn't chance the opportunity to go back and change those choices. But sometimes....sometimes it's hard to let go of "I wonder"....and the corollary of trying to figure out in which areas we get a second chance.
I've realized that most of my adult life choices have been predicated on taking the bigger challenge, the one that would be almost impossible to go back to later, and demanding to take on that challenge in a style that is ultimately my own.
- Medical school? I decided to go when I did because I knew it would be harder to go later than I did. I went where I wanted to go based upon the clinical reputation of the school and my heart telling me I needed to go back to Central Texas for a few years. No regrets, no second guessing.
- Surgery residency? I figured it would be more realistic to start here and switch into pediatrics or whatever else caught my fancy than it would be to do things the other way. I also remember saying, "I'll do this, but I won't sell my soul to do it." When I thought my soul had been sold I quit (unsuccessfully); I did manage to get my priorities pulled back together and remembered that the job didn't come first, at least in the context of being a job. Some rocky times, but no regrets.
- Burn and critical care fellowship? Well, beats Hell out of doing general surgery on adults (which I never loved anyway). I went to Galveston because it would set me up for the rest of my career. I continue to believe that it has. As hard as that year was on me from a personal standpoint, no regrets.
- Academia? I ended up here out of a pure passion for teaching and learning. It gives me a place to put together the parts of medicine that mean the most to me, finding ways to unite patient care with educating and with improving how we do things. I would be lying if I said these first three years have been easy (they haven't, and at times they've forced me to do some of the hardest things I've ever had to do). But, again, no regrets.
The second guessing isn't really that, either, at the most fundamental level. I can't imagine my life from 1994 until this year any different from how I lived it, and I honestly believe that I made the choices that I made as acts of self-preservation. Quite simply, the things I excluded were things I didn't have space for if I was going to succeed with the "big" stuff. By saying that I didn't want or need marriage, kids, whatever...well, it just kept me from failing at the things that generate the most discomfort in terms of my innate ability to succeed.
And now?
Now I get the chance to be a little bit scared and a little bit brave. Okay, a lot scared. I'm still working on where brave fits in with it all.
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Now playing: Melissa Etheridge - You Used To Love To Dance
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