I haven’t written here in forever. This year was one of the hardest years of my life, and I had too much going on trying to keep my head above water, to think about writing.
But now that the year is almost over, I figured I should write something. Because I survived. Not only that, I’m actually OK.
This year started with me buying a house-in-ruins, that I planned to finish demolishing and rebuilding it as my house. While I rebuilt it, I moved in with a friend who kindly offered to host me (for free!) while I made my house habitable.
In med school, I started rotating through OB/GYN. If you remember my traumatic experience in Chad from last year, you can imagine this was not easy. It brought back memories. There were times I had to distract myself, or literally leave the room, in order to not start crying.
Med school is a full time job. Building a house, is also a full time job. And I was also working as an English teacher, a few hours a week. I was physically and emotionally exhausted.
Then I moved, while the house was still a construction zone. And started rotating through pediatrics, at a hospital 1.5hrs away. Then I ran out of money for the house. So now I was getting no sleep (because I had to get up at 5am) and I was very stressed and regretted buying the house.
Pediatrics was, in a way, worse than ob/gyn. I had PTSD from my time in Chad about ob/gyn. But I want to have children, and seeing and interacting with these precious kiddos day in and day out, and seeing many of them being mistreated or simply needing so much more (anything, love, food, education, care) than they were getting, just about broke me. I kept thinking I could do better. And maybe I couldn’t. But my brain and my uterus kept yelling at me that I could do better and give me those kids and let me take care of them, damn it!
I was about to break. And then, my 7-month pregnant cousin died of an aneurysm, the baby survived but had to be in the NICU for a few weeks, the family lived far away, and it fell to me, to go see her (the baby) and give her all the love and affection I could, until she could go home. Far away. Far away from me.
So I did. I took care of this tiny little human, and loved her, and gave her my heart, and then... her dad came and took her (rightfully) away. And I broke.
I was still rotating through peds. It was almost exams time and I could barely force myself to get out of bed and keep moving.
But somehow I did.
I kept going, managed to get honors in peds (I have no idea how!!) and get the house almost finished (with a LOT of financial help from my wonderful mom, who paid for my kitchen, among other things).
And now, it’s Christmas. I am currently sitting at an airport bar, waiting for a flight to Mexico, a place I’ve already been, so I can turn off my brain and do nothing, but lie on the sand, bake in the sun, drink margaritas and eat tacos.
Moral of the (very long) story: we are stronger than we think. If you’re going through a rough patch, know it, in your heart and soul, that it will be ok. YOU will be ok. I promise.
Merry Christmas.
