Things to remember while in medical school
Having ditched my first set of classes to do laundry I now feel like I can give some specific recommendations for coping with the first term of med school.
1. Pen drives worn on long black cords around the neck are not jewelry.
2. Friends and family do not appreciate your enthusiasm for your work in the cadaver lab, especially if it involves a chisel and the spinal cord.
3. Anatomy scrubs, much like chef whites, must be kept in a separate laundry bag if you don't want ALL of your laundry smelling like the cadaver lab.
4. Mnenoics do help, but it is hard to get some of them out of you mind ("Some lovers try positions that they can't handle" for the bones of the wrist) and they may end up rolling through your brain at inopportune times, like just before your embryology professor says " and you should definitely know that for the midterm."
5. DO not pack a lunch on dissection days.. Everything in your bag that you leave outside the dissection room smells like the dissection room for hours after you have been there.
More recommendations to follow.. I'll keep you posted.
We have had big surf—well big surf for Grenada- for the last couple of days. Places on the beach where people normally sit have been swamped. There was some type of sailing festival on Grand Anse beach a ways down this weekend. The beach was full of people, little sailboats, beach dogs, kids, vendors a band stand.....
A wave would come in and just wash under everyone’s feet.
I shot some film - wacky old fashioned knuclehead that I am-- as well as these digital shots. Felt good to have my head somewhere else other than science.
Later in the day I went to the beach side tables next to the open air kitchen where “the ladies” (as they are known—I am already a Rosie Partisan) cook for those SGU students who contract with or buy from them and who cook for whomever is wandering down the beach and gets hungry. For whatever reason there is good wifi reception here, so my roomie Nichole and I studied there that afternoon and that evening.
In the picture I am holding up my biochem book as evidence that I was indeed studying and pointing in the general direction of the waves crashing twenty or so feet away.
Crazy Ivan
I had a request for more photos of "town" and I must confess that I haven't been to town yet but have spent most of my time shuttling between campus and the four or five blocks around the dorms around campus-- which includes two mini malls, a grocery store, several niceish restaurants and as I have said.. a damn fine beach. But I took my camera with me on my bus ride to school the other day. The first photo is a busy-ish inland intersection. The second is a large building next to the Grand Anse trade center that was obviously hit by Ivan. Ivan struck.. a year and a half or maybe two years ago and removed the rooftops of 90 % of the buildings in Grenada. The island is still rebuilding, and the evidence of the destruction is still everywhere.
Confessions of a Meditation Snob
This week at school went very fast. I have labs two mornings a week and generally have three mornings that I can use for extra study time, but I lost two of those this week because of irregularly scheduled small group work for various classes. I feel like I am keeping my head above water, but that the water is definitely tickling my bottom lip. I signed up for a complementary medicine “selective” last week and had started to question the wisdom in participating as I watched many of my fellow classmates drop out of the workshop because they were already feeling the pressure mounting. Even though I am in med school, it will surprise none of you that I am hoping to get a 4.0 this semester—though considerably less confident about doing so than I was at UNM or SFCC. But I had a long talk with myself about not indulging my OCD and went to the workshop. Hearing MDs and members of the non-allopathic medical community speak about the intersections of those worlds reminded me why I got in this game in the first place. There was an MD from UT who ran an integrative medicine center who spoke about the empirical studies being done by allopathic physicians that verified the efficacy, utility and cost effectiveness of complementary therapies. There were also lectures by a researcher who used audiovisual stimulation to treat ADHD and biofeedback to treat test anxiety. The other presenters included a medical anthropologist who did his research in south Texas and Arizona gave a great presentation on curandismo and an OD who talked about the holistic approach of osteopathy. The afternoon concurrent workshops were less useful. My reflexology workshop consisted of a handout of basic reflexology points and the opportunity to squeeze an unknown class mates foot—in my case a young man who appeared to be of East Indian decent who was in second term and who assured all the anxious first termers around him that we would be okay, but that we should “just memorize everything.”
The second afternoon workshop was on the benefits of meditation—and the orientation and meditation instruction was VERY different from my experience of Zen. The presenter did talk about fear and greed being blocks to connecting to the divine.. but the basic instruction was to consciously connect to god or the divine that is everywhere… and well nobody ever told me to do that at HMZC. And the recommendation for an optimum meditation period was 3 minutes! I noticed my inner Zen snob rebelling against that!. It was also very hard for me to reach out for something and not simply follow my breath, count to ten and notice when thoughts came up. I struggled to connect to something larger than myself, noticed that I struggled, and noticed that I felt lonely and sad that I noticed that I struggled and had difficulty connecting to something larger than myself.
But I have come back refreshed and feeling like I have taken a holiday from my own academic version of checkbook mind—constantly measuring myself against my own expectations of how far I should have gotten and my hallucinations of how much more or less my classmates have accomplished. After comparing notes with a fellow med student across the hall and sharing with her my experiences in the meditation workshop, she asked me if I could teach her to meditate and I said yes. It would be really nice to have someone to sit with on a regular basis.
So life feels sweet—if a little bitter sweet. I have bouts of loneliness, times when I feel I just won’t be able to keep up with the MASSIVE amount of information I need to take in. And there is a certain amount of fatigue I feel, being the good Meyers-Briggs style introvert that I am, a little run down being around people who seem great yet who but for a few exceptions I don’t quite know well enough to totally relax around or who don’t know my whole story. Everyone calls me Sarah here and I still think of myself as Sa.
Yet what I am studying is just amazing, the instruction is for the most part very good and the instructional support is innovative, integrated and ever present. And in a strange way I feel privileged to be able to take on all these stresses. Stress and massive change come into most people’s lives as unbidden and unwelcome visitors-- I chose the shape and form of mine and that, my friends, is divine.
Sqezy dish soap.. lime scented!
The Question is it pronounced Squeazy like "the big easy"
or Sqe-zy like "pez-y"
You be the judge
The SGU experience
Sitting at the end of the hallway to our rooms where we can get wifi reception over the quiet study room which is often crowded....
Pictured is Nicole-- my roommate and my flashcards and computer (I was getting info off SGU's muscle database)
Folks also hang out in the stairwell a lot if they want to make internet calls.
Swimming in the rain
Today was a very full day. Anatomy lab 8-10, ethics small group discussion 10- 12 anatomy lecture 1 - 3, clinical skills lecture 3 -4 and embryology 4-5.
Anatomy lab was very cool. There was a very nice prosection of the axilla and I got to dissect down to the transverse processes of the spine and see the whole structure in situ.. that is I got a really nice view of someone's spine. The ratio of instructors to students in phenominal.. I'd say 1 MD or PhD anatomist for every 5 to 8 students. So we get a lot of support during lab time.
The Ethics discussion was also very good.. they have us thinking about access, consent and end of life issues already-- and applying it to what we are doing now as students.. so a good day but a long day-- and it was raining when I got back "home" but my roommate Nicole was up for a swim so we went out and did mellow laps up and down the beach in the rain for about 20 minutes. It was really nice actually-- it felt a little cold getting in.. but mostly it was pleasant to have the rain falling on my face.. until it started raining so hard that it began to sting. But I have earned my dinner at least-- and will walk in the rain to the Chinese take out place across the street.
Fingered it all out
First of all... YEA for Gina who told me what I needed to do in order for the comments to appear--- so this forum should now be a little more fun for all.
And to answer someone else's question, Ruth is the young Chinese American Woman pictured with me in our lab coats at the White Coat ceremony.
I did study most of the day, wrapping my head around biochem and getting a little closer to where I need to be with Anatomy (The Brachial Plexus will drive me insane.. and for the record, it wouldn't be pretty to be shot in the shoulder.. many many blood vessels and nerves)
Went for a lovely long swim... Hey its my exercise.
I hang my towel from the tree in the one picture. The other is a picture of three cruise ship's.. And the yankee Clipper for the Sharp eyed.. that were all in port this weekend. It is much more impresive live...
And it starts all over again tomorrow..... Week 2 here I COME!
How I watch TV
Back in the day
Favorite quote from anatomy lecture---
SO Dr. Jordan is lecturing.. showing pictures of surface anatomy, and asserting in a joking manner that this model or that model was actually this or that anatomy professor in their graduate student days—acting as anatomy models to make money. So a black and white photo of a skinny light skinned dark haired man pops up and Dr Jordan announces that it was Dr. Brahmin in his graduate school days..
Dr. Brahim, who is East Indian, promptly call from the back of the lecture hall where the rouge's gallery of anatomy professors sit, “yes,-- back when I was white!”
Hurricane Pizza
It’s Sunday and I got up at 6 am this morning (slept in.. not my usual 5) and went downstairs to the study room to hit the books. The study room has wireless internet in it that kind of leaks out, so you will often find people sitting in the hall outside the study room, in the adjacent stairwell or in the hall above the study room accessing the internet or making internet based calls. This morning when I came down to the study room there were two people sitting looking at a laptop with a bottle of wine next to them.. looking a little bleary eyed as if they had been up all night. When I got in the study room there was already someone here ahead of me.
That is med school in a nutshell. There are some kids here who party so frequently I don’t know how they will be able to pass their classes. And there are some folks here who make my obsessive-compulsive study habits seem as if I am the worst of slackers.
My anatomy lab meets for dissection only once a week, but the lab itself is open almost all the time and I met some students whose lab was scheduled earlier to review bones and the structures dissected so far on the cadaver. The cadaver work is incredibly constructive and it is very helpful to go over, and I have a somewhat cohesive group forming for study.
So the first week is gone which I am told is the longest. I am sure I’ll blink and wake up back in the states this summer. I am still trying to adjust to the way things happen here, like not being able to find a needle and thread anywhere but a fabric store—when I asked the cashier at the mimi-walmart like hardware store she looked at me like I was nuts “You’ll have to go to the cloth store, and you won’t find that until Monday”
I went out to dinner last night to a little pizza place past the Spicelands mall (which is a mall about 1/3 to ¼ the size of the DeVargas mall for you Santa Feans) with my roommate Nicole and another 30+ vet student named Sheri who had brought her dog with her to the island. We sat outside on a nice patio had big salads and a split an Ivan (Named for the hurricane that removed about 90% of the rooftops here a couple of years ago) A pepperoni, olive, sun dried tomato pizza with hostesses, not all that hot for this new Mexico girl. It was good conversation and a beautiful evening and it was nice mostly because it felt so normal, not one of the huge on slot of new and different experiences. Even when change is good and sought after it still can be fatiguing,
AH well back to the grindstone. the muscles of the beep back wait to be memorized
Raining Buckets
It rained big this morning, but then produced this beautiful rainbow.
Comments
Hey folks--
Many of you have written to tell me that you enjoy the blog, and I really appreciate your comments.
But It also feels a little like I am writting into the void.. if you all could post a short comment-- even just a smile ( :-) ) I will know you are visiting and I'll keep writing.
Thanks!
Sa
Why School is cool
Actually it is Ruth who is cool, who regularly hands over her recording of all the lectures to me the next day. I can then load up the professors power point presentations and WEE a virtual lecture I can replay and get he bits I didn't get. SO I do this really weird thing in lecture now.. I listen and watch instead of constantly trying to take notes and missing half of what the professor says. Pretty Cool. Warms the part of my heart that still lives in academic support.
I
Shape of the days
Lest there are those among you who are getting too jealous of all my Caribbean pictures, let me assure you that this is medical school.
I have 4 hours of lecture every afternoon, spread out over 5 classes, five days a week, and - 2 hour labs two mornings a week. And I feel like there is just not going to be enough time. I could spend an hour or two a day reviewing in the anatomy lab alone, never mind histoology, never mind keeping up with anatomy, histology, biochemistry, immunology and clinical skills classes. I got up at five, was at the books by 5:20.. on campus by 7:45 to meet a study partner, Histo lab at 10-11:30, study skills workshop 12-12:45, lecture from 1 to 4:30 (we skipped a pee break woo hoo got out early) Now I am back home. Surf is a little rough for my afternoon swim and I am not as overheated as I usually am at this time of day so I have a small window.. go to the phone store to figure out voice mail? the computer store to find a headset for VOIP? Back up my lap top? Or study before dinner, then dinner then study after dinner. Well, I will study after dinner in any case.. But that friends is the day.
But the science the work what I am studying all just so so incredibly cool and fascinating that the real frustration is not having the time I want to really get into the subjects.
The histology prof is a hoot. From New York.. most definitely... says things like "There are many slides I would hang on my wall as art, but for my money, you gotta love the prostate gland.. look at this puppy, its butte!"
Very Very smart man, very good lecturer.. can hold the student's attention during hours three and four, and that is no small feat.
Backing up the computer is calling.. Ciao for now
Multi tasking
Wow lab orienting the 4 hours of lecture.. burnt burnt burnt.. alarm set for 5
But look ---- it the amazing multitasking sink.. used for handwashing.. washing out clothes (About 30 minutes before this picture was taken.. and washing lettuce!
White Coat Ceremony
Last night we had our white coat ceremony (More lines! yeah!) and recieved our first physician's white coat and were welcomed to the profession. The speaker was actually good, reminding us that as humans we will make mistakes and that ist is more important to acknowledge them and learn from them than to try and hide them.
The pictures are of Ruth and I at the reception and me (Oh just turn your head.. I am a busy med student, I don't have time to format it right now).
We had anatomy lab orientation today.. lots of open hours which is good. Today is anatomy lecture and clinical skills and embryology. More soon.
Sa
The View from my balcony
Not too shabby, no?
Happy Birthday to Me.....
I am still having trouble uploading images to the blog, but I will try to send one from campus tomorrow and see if that works better.
Today I had a nice lazy morning writing letters and then went to convocation. It was clear from convocation that this is a University that puts education first.. which is nice. It pleases my little academic soul that the mission is clear and upfront. I was also reminded that many straight A students are no longer in the top of their classes when they get to med school-gulp. But what is the Mark Twain quote.. Age and deceit can win out over youth and vigor every time.. Well in my case it will be age and determination.
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After convocation I showed Ruth the Grande Anse campus and we picked up our white coats for the white coat ceremony tomorrow. We high-tailed it back to campus where Ruth fed me a very nice bowl of curry, and some birthday Papaya. And what is more festive on your birthday then Papaya? Her birthday is tomorrow.. another Capricorn-I knew there was something I liked about her. Ruth will be turning 24 and is taking very good care of me. I have to pick up my books tomorrow (EVERYONE says bring a suitcase) and Ruth has it all planned that I will leave them in her room for the day so I don't have to lug them back to Grand Anse-my door on the beach a 10 minute bus ride away.
We went to a buddy program meeting, the purpose of which seemed to be to introduce us to our buddy and give us coupons for a huge welcome back fair. There were tons of food vendors.. many of whom I hear sell on campus. There were a lot of east Indians selling Indian food so my fridge is now stocked with samosas for the week. I hung out with my RA some and looked at all the booths. Fruits and veggies seem to be hard to come by but I am told that there is a vendor on campus tomorrow. Right now I have a ton of food.. but a lot of it is fairly starchy. This is not a place for those folks who are on the atkins diet. I wandered in and out and round the booths and finally took the bus back and went for a swim-which is quickly becoming my necessary afternoon cool off event. I have been munching on cake that I got at the fair and hanging out with my new roommate Nicole. Friends it seems are materializing. It feels like I have been here for weeks, and I am told that the first week is the longest.
And I am certain I won't be posting this much when school gets in full swing.
Not an easy day today.. But a good day. Good to be still growing still healthy still taking this many risks at age 42.
Last Night's Sunset
Well I tried to upload the images, but so far It hasn't worked. I am not sure/ maybe it is a speed/size/rate of usage issue-- whatever.
I am working on getting an internet based phone number so I can call friends cheaply and they can call me. The hitch is that I have to be near a wirless center to recieve calls (Not in my room.. on main campus mostly) so you will need to leave a voicemail and I'll call you back. OR you can buy a headset and microphone and sign up for skype and we can talk for free over the internet. More info at: www.skype.com.
Send me an email if you want more info..
Sa
Land O' lines
For the present I have the luxury of privacy-my roommate does not arrive until tomorrow. I have yet to swim (..and the beach-my god the beach is surreally beautiful) but got a great deal accomplished today. I found myself saying to someone at registration today “welcome to the land of lines” and I have stood in MANY MANY lines since arriving here. The lines at the airport were insanely long first at immigration, then the one I needed to stand in to report my lost bag, then the “laptop line” where all the St. George's students were dutifully declaring there laptops. Then there was the line at registration, the line to get my financial aid check and mailbox, the line at the bank to get an account.
Grenada is still the Grenada I remembered, that is to say I got hit on by a beautiful Grenaden man within 5 minutes of walking into the grocery store. Folks here seem helpful in ways that would never be considered in the states.. When I bought an electric kettle, they took it out of the box for me and filled it with water and turned it on, and waited till it boiled so I knew that it worked while a man behind me was having the sales clerk try out the light bulbs he was buying.
Because it is the dry season, it was raining horizontal when I showed up, and it has been fairly soggy since then. My dorm room is in an old hotel property on Grand Anse Beach and it is a little run down, but it is spacious and .. I have mentioned the beach?! Last night I slept on my single bed on a layer of tee shirts covered by a 2/3 finished shawl I am still crocheting because the bag that had all the sheets and towels in it did not arrive with me. Tonight I have the prospect of either sleeping on the sheet provided to me by my kind RA or a trip to the airport to get my missing bag-although after having spent the previous night at JFK pretending to sleep in a chair with my feet propped up on my baggage (it wasn't like “the terminal” I didn't see tom hanks, I didn't find a bench to sleep on, I didn't have a date with any cute flight attendants,) I had little trouble sleeping on my ad hoc jersey sheet set.
I nearly panicked when I saw how young most of my classmates were, then I began to see a FEW other non-trads-my RA among them and I felt better. I have made an acquaintance with an earnest and sweet young woman named Ruth.. and am now nodding acquaintances with a few more folks. There seems to be multiple opportunities for bonding. There is Plane bonding, dorm bonding and a generalized line bonding where much information is exchanged. The weekend is FULL of events.. things to do and see including a tour of town tomorrow. Classes start Monday.
There is a big outdoor kitchen on the beach where “the ladies” cook. There are a few ladies actually, I bought my dinner from Rosie. Chicken tacos consisting of two freshly made tortillas filled with a generous amount of chicken, cheese and salsa, a small salad, a big helping of rice, a serving of mac and cheese, and a side of veg.. all for about $12. Dinner seemed expensive at first, but I only ate about 1/3 of it and will comfortably get two or more meals out of it.
I have also learned the interesting tidbit that in order to get wireless internet access (called firefly here, much to the delight of my internet lovin heart) I need to leave the room and go down the hall-which I will do now so I can post this missiv.
Peace out
I guess it is real..
'cause i am gettin on the god-damn plane!!! :-)
Long Lost Post
Here is something I wrote almost two weeks ago in California---
Tomrrow New York
Thursday---Grenada
more from the road soon....
Sa
Checkbook mind
It is twenty minutes past midnight—just barely Thursday December 29th. I am at what has been my home for the last 10 days, the couch in the living room of my Mom’s elegant Palo Alto condo. I had meant to get any early start to my Dad’s in Cherry Valley tomorrow but my head has been swirling with an assortment of mental grocery lists and speculations and sleep now seems very far away.
At the foot of the couch I have a brand new neat little black canvas medical bag that I filled this evening and showed to my Mom who said “there you go, Doctor Alvord.”
My house is sold, my tickets purchased, my financial aid has come through ( I was even awarded a merit based scholarship!) and so now it seems real.
I am moving to Grenada in less than two weeks
I am attending the medical school that became my top choice
And I will become a physician.
It feels as if I have left my old life already. Two weeks ago Sunday I left New Mexico for an extended visit in the Bay Area—spending time with Mom who has been incredibly supportive and connecting and reconnecting with old friends.
I got to connect with my dear friend Dan—who I had not seen in between five and ten years (we couldn’t figure out how long it had been) After a surreally long two hour drive from Palo Alto to the City, we met in a tea house on a rainy slightly cool and muggy San Francisco night. We caught up on our stories, although I think Dan still owes me some. I was telling the tale of the Zen center I belonged to until it folded because the teacher there was having an affair with one of his students and had made passes at many more. When asked about the Zen Center I usually talk about how I found it because of a writing workshop that was being held there—but when Dan asked me why I meditated what I got out of it— I told him that meditation really helped me with my anxiety attacks and I told him a little about my found years and my bad case of checkbook mind.
This is the long story. Dan got the short one. It is important to me that I tell it now before I forget what brought me to this point—and how the parts I didn’t talk about were the hardest ones.
About a decade ago I did something similar to what I am doing now. I sold my house, did some traveling and tore up my old life and tried to reinvent my self. I moved to Colorado, fell in love hard and tried unsuccessfully to be something other than a chef. I though my relationship with K was it—the one in the most romanticized and unrealistic way. And I ended it—and he was with someone new days later so I must have had some semblance of functioning emotional radar left—and I took it very hard. I remember going into work—a small resort in the mountains-- and lying on the floor in the back banquet room and crying for hours on end. I let depression and anxiety chase me to Seattle and back to Santa Fe again. I had a sales job that was bruising my ego and was even more bruised when I was laid off. Living on my unemployment I had little excuse to leave the house.. and so I didn’t. The anxiety attacks I had all my life became frequent unwanted visitors. What was worse than the paralyzing attacks of fear of my own annihilation was the fear that someone would find out that I was having them.
And eventually, thank god, my unemployment ran out and I had to get a job. I started working for a small gallery 10 minutes from my house. Started putting my finances together a bit, and somehow managed to tell my dear friend miss Shelly that I couldn’t go out to dinner because I was afraid I would have an anxiety attack.
She told me it wasn’t Okay to be that way and gave me J. the shrink’s number.
I called j. the shrink and finally found a therapist who I wasn’t smarted than I was so I couldn’t out maneuver. J was no nonsense and straight forward, with a no whining sign on his bookshelf near the clock. After a couple of hours he sent me home with a single juggling ball with the instruction that I should CLOSE MY EYES and toss it from one had to the other. Anxiety attacks, he explained, arose in part from a localization of brain activity in one hemisphere. It wasn’t a cure-all, but it helped.
It was at about at that time that I started going to the Zendo for Sunday morning meditation.
And for months, on the mornings that it was really really hard just to get out of bed, I got out of bed telling myself I all had to do that day was toss the ball and sit facing the wall for ten minutes and then I could go back to bed if I needed to. After tossing the ball and sitting with the wall, I never needed too.
Eventually I stopped needing to toss the ball, but I sat more and more.
For four years I lived in a lovely crumbling old adobe with friends who became like family, working a simple job ten minutes away and sitting Tuesday nights in Lamy—Sundays in Albuquerque—at home most mornings and a few long retreats toward the end.
I think of this time as my found years. Not that I believe in the concept of enlightenment. Most of the folks I have met who think they are enlightened or who are overly concerned with seeking enlightenment simply seem to have stopped looking at themselves and have grown intolerant of the human frailties of others. But meditating as much as I did I found out some things. Like I have a very busy mind, that is full of lists, that is eager to problem solve, obsess over and over about the same things. And I am a verbal processor and no matter how long the meditation retreat, my internal monologue never shuts off. In the end if I let go of things through meditation it was because I found myself boring—in I can’t believe I am still obsessing over this petty shit sort of way. What I found was the very changeable me, my sanity and my neuroses, my kindness and my pettiness, my intelligence and my denial. And I started to get to know myself without trying to edit who I was first.
Four years ago I had a very different holiday. I was back in school and had the time finally to sit some long meditation retreats. In Dec ember 2001 I sat an eight-day silent meditation retreat. I went home to Santa Fe for a sweet and somber Christmas with Lily and Susan—who had just lost her father. I went back to the Zendo after four or five days for a five-day new years retreat. My retreat experience was intense. I was sitting the full retreat schedule and running the kitchen for all the retreat participants so that I could attend for free. Late one afternoon 3 or 4 days into the year’s retreat I had a full-blown anxiety attack while meditating. I flushed with panic.. my heart started racing I felt like jumping up and running to my room to hide. I had long feared that I would get an anxiety attack while meditating with in the zendo with my fellow students and that I would embarrass myself and show them how crazy I was.
I didn’t run away--- I did what my fellow students told me they did when unpleasant or unwanted emotions came up during meditation. I invited my fear to sit down and stay awhile, to see what it had to say to me. In some small corner of my brain I gave myself permission to have a full meltdown. I trusted that those folks I practiced with would take care of my if I ending up a shaking crying puddle on the floor. And as soon as I did that my fear went away. And for a few heartbeats I thought of nothing--- and then my old friend checkbook mind came back and I listened to myself think soup I was making for dinner and who was signed up to serve it.
Friends and acquaintances tell me it must be so hard to go back to school, that I am so courageous to sell all my things and move out of the country.
But I love school, I love to study. And all those things I had filled my house with—even my books, didn’t matter as much as becoming a physician-- so I had a smile on my face as I pushed three grocery carts filled with books into the local Salvation Army.
For me, as busy as the last few months have been, all those overt efforts at change have not been the hard part. I didn’t tell most people about the really hard things, the ones that led me to this moment as surely as my A in Organic chemistry did.
What was hard was telling Shelly that I had anxiety attacks
What was hard was going the zendo to sit that first time
It took all my courage some mornings to get out of bed those mornings when I felt so worthless and fearful that if anyone looked at me I would simply cease to exist.
Even as my anxiety attacks and depression had almost entirely lost its grip on me, other new hard times presented themselves.
A few months after my retreat filled December, my teacher resigned because of his affair with a student and the Zendo folded. It was not hard to loose my teacher—he did not change after all-- only my perception of him did. It was hard to loose the Sangha—the community of Zen students who were fractured by those events.
And then there were loved ones with cancer—the pain of their death and the pain of my relationship to those who loved those who died changing as well.
And my fear of the depression I felt after I ended my relationship with K still haunts me enough that I have spent the last decade alone.
Persevering through the long frustrating limbo of finding the medical school that was right for me has been incredibly difficult as well.
Stepping onto that plane in January will be the easy compared to those things.
Before we were to do a new form of service in the zendo one day, which made most of the student edgy at best and fearful at the worst, my teacher said to us something to this effect “it is hard to do things new because we want to do them correctly but don’t know how to do them correctly--- but you should taste that not knowing, it may be sweet”
And all the not knowing ahead of me seems incredibly sweet now.
I am not excited precisely, but I move forward in wonder and gratitude that I have even a shot at becoming a physician, that I get to go to Grenada for two years to study, that I get to come back to California to be closer to my family to do my clincals, that I will get to see much more of my friends and family if even half of the people who have said “Oh we are definitely visiting you in Grenada” actually show up, and that I get to attend an internationally focused medical school with a good reputation that is filled with students who, like me, do not fit the traditional mode. I am doing what I want to do professionally, and leaving my previous employer on good terms with the respect and admiration of my colleagues. I will wake up two weeks and a day from today in my dorm room off Grand Anse beach in Grenada.
I have no idea how this will all turn out. I know it won’t be what I expect it will be. And that thought just makes me smile. And as it is now twenty past two—I am off to seek the sleep I need for the next day that will bring me a little further down the road.
If you want people to read your blog...
You better post to it.
Oh well.. been on the road in California for most of the last two and a half weeks. I have a three hour insomnia induced rant saved somewhere on my computer that I may actually post as intended if it is not TOOOO embarrassing. In the mean time.. I leave a week from today and things do not seem to be slowing down. Hopefully I will be posting more frequently.
Sa
