i sat with them over coffee to answer their questions about the upcoming year. exactly one year ago, i was in their shoes....fresh out of a residency in Internal Medicine and preparing to start what i perceived at the time as "my dream job". countless hours later....hours filled with thoughts of my patients, their families, the treatments i can offer to make their cancer go away, even just for a little bit....hours filled wrestling with difficult decisions about how best care for a patient teetering on the edge of death, at the mercy of what us folks in my line of work call a "coagulopathy" (short for a bad bleeding problem)....hours filled wrestling with my own mortality, my own perspective on my life's priorities....and probably most noteably, hours filled wrestling with the surprise passion i found for something i never intended to love, hematology. countless hours later i realized that this is only the beginning.....that everything up until this point has prepared me for what and who i want to be, professionally. all that internal wrestling and questioning....all those tears and life conversations....all of the discomfort i faced in my first year of fellowship....it was all for good reason, and it was perfect.
there is no way to explain this to them. to explain how this first year of fellowship will help shape them. how there are no papers to read or book to reference to guide you on that particular part of the journey. that's the cool thing about life. sometimes you just have to wing it...
i know this to be true in many other aspects of my life. ryan began the conversation about finally, after years of dreaming of it, starting his own business around thanksgiving of last year. i've known for years its something he wanted to do. we wrestled with it, slept on it, worried about it, prayed over it, cried about it (for the record, it was me who did the crying...not my ryan) and finally.....took a huge giant leap of faith. i have spent countless hours pondering the what ifs, never once doubting my husband and his amazing capabilities but just worrying about the difficulties of any startup business. instead, that leap of faith has proven to be one of the best chances we ever took. we are finding our wings. business is great and far more important than that....i've never seen ryan more happy, deeply happy, doing what he loves.
of course, as any mom does, i worry about my kids. their happiness, their wellbeing, filling their lives with the perfect combination of fun and structure. in the days following the visits with ben's doctor, learning that he would have to take medicine for some time, i was a wreck. i felt so guilty for not having found this sooner (not that it would have made a difference) and worried about trying to get him to take medicine. i worried about how it would make him feel and started thinking about the future...how could i keep him from feeling "different". he has started treatment and drinks his own "special juice" 3 times a day and takes another medicine from a dropper in the mornings. he's been such a little trooper about it and has done such a great job. i still worry but i realize that i'm the one with the issues, not him. he's amazing in every sense of the word and, if i do my job just right, will never know the difference.
about a month ago, emma's entire school underwent a transition. in preparation for the opening of a new center next year....she switched out of a class that she has been a part of for 2 years. the class where she learned her ABCs, was potty trained, and the class where she became a big sister. every so often in life, you form a bond with a group of people that you just can't explain. between her amazing teachers in this class, the sweet spirits that filled emma's life each day at school, and the fun time learning they all had together....this group was some kind of magic. truly magic. we found out she was moving in a not so magical way, on my birthday, and it was heart breaking. her teachers did such a good job of preparing her but, even still, she woke up on the day she was to become a "growing gator" crying. she knew. at 3 years old....she knew. it was time to grow up just a little bit and move to the big kid class. i held back my own tears as i told her how awesome this was going to be....helping her imagine all the cool stuff she would get to do in the big kid class. it was a rough week, i won't lie. but she has LOVED it. at almost three and a half, she is one of the youngest kids in her class and i think the challenge is just right for her. i can tell her teacher is amazing and emma loves her already. anyone emma thinks is great is alright by me. she comes home from school everyday talking about her new friends, "miss braden", and even informed me that "i have 3 sisters at school mommy!". her little gaggle of girlfriends have decided that they are all sisters....emma told me, "now i need a sister at home, ok?". slow down there, little one, slow down ;)
with an ounce of worry off my shoulders, and the understanding that life might work out if i just let it....things feel pretty dandy these days. i'm making time for me. i'm finally writing again. i'm finding fun projects to work on around the house. i'm working on some pretty exciting things at work. i'm simply being with the folks i love. and trying not to worry so damn much because whether or not i chose to believe it, seems as if the universe is unfolding exactly as it should.
happy tuesday, friends. here's life via instagram these days. my obsession continues...
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