Medical Mondays, Vol. 1

This is my first Medical Mondays post. Linking up with this month's hosts Your Doctor's Wife, From a Doctor's Wife, Home with the Boys, and The Life Unexpected.

First a bit of an introduction for anyone who might be finding this via the link-up. My husband, Charles, is a 3rd year osteopathic medical student here in Phoenix. I think he will end up going the Family Medicine route, but I know that there are no guarantees in the wacky, wonderful world of medicine.  We were married in July, 2011, between 1st and 2nd years and had our first daughter, Clare, one year and one-day later, about a week into his first 3rd year rotation. Luckily, he had an extraordinarily understanding preceptor! Suddenly, 1st birthday parties and 4th year are looming, and the realities of the residency application process are getting more and more real.

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Generally, I try to be a glass-half-full kind of girl. I have learned that true joy comes from God. As such, I seek, and generally find, contentment in the present.

My RealSimple quote of the day last Thursday. It seemed pretty apropos.

It can be hard, at times, to make that work when you're in the medical world. Lately, it seems that we're constantly in the midst of third year's "plan your life" angst, figuring out away rotations and electives, making and re-making tentative application lists. Angst that I know is unlikely to go fully away until we have a Match list. Or a Match. Or have moved onto residency. Or . . . this is the kind of thinking I hate. "Plan your life already" and "be happy in the present" don't mesh well. Not for me at least.

I'm not good at angst. Even in my angsty teen years, I didn't see angst. I saw life. I found good in what I was experiencing. Only looking back do I see the struggles and pain and ickiness of the teen years. Only now do I see how hard I was working to find myself, and how the real authentic me was simultaneously totally there and totally buried. As a result, I find myself fighting -- not to survive medical school, but to survive the angst.

I digress. I'm blessed. I get to watch my husband live his dream, even as I am able to stay home with our beautiful little daughter. I find myself considering lives that I would never have imagined in places that I never could have guessed. I know that we'll be happy wherever we land, because we are together.

But if someone could just let me know where that will be, it sure would be swell!