When I started writing this blog, I was adamant that I wanted to do it for me. I never really anticipated having people actually read it, and it's been lovely to have met some real friends through this blog.
However.
I haven't been doing this for me for a while now. I haven't been coming home bubbling over with stories to share, memories to record. Instead, I've been thinking to myself that I'm overdue to write something, and wondering if I can weave the few interesting snippets of my day into something worth reading. (And failing at even that.)
The truth is, this year I've finally understood all those wiser and more experienced than me who've been saying all this time that medicine is just another job. It's not that I didn't believe them, it's just that I always hoped that I'd be the exception, and carry on with my lovely rose-coloured glasses. (And I have failed at that, too.)
Oh, I think I'll be a reasonable doctor at the end of it all, and (like any other job), I expect it'll have its good days and bad, but that passion, that fire? It's burned out, right now (and really, so am I). I've been turning down opportunities I would have jumped out of bed in the middle of the night for a year ago, and I can hardly bring myself to care. And just to rub it in, I've been working with a lovely fellow student who seems to embody all the enthusiasm that I'm just not feeling right now.
It's taking all my effort just to show up, these days (though I am trying the 'fake it till you make it' approach as best I can), and so I'm cutting back on a few other things to focus on what's important. Mr Incisions. My friends. My felines. My study. My freaking alarm clock reminding me that I have to be at the hospital by 7am.
And this is one of those things. I'm winding up my blog. I'll archive my posts offline - maybe, someday, I'll return to writing, in one form or another, when I can find the joy again - but for here and now, this will be my last post.
I'd like to thank those of you who've read my blog, commented, emailed me, gotten to know me. You know who you are.
And I can't wrap up this account of this part of my journey without a dedication to those who've brought me here.
For Brittany, for her unimaginable strength.
For SG, for giving me hope that I might rediscover the joy someday.
For Iris, who gets it.
For Ruby, who keeps me real.
And most of all, for my extraordinary husband, who makes me better and brighter than I ever could have been without him.
Cut.
Suture.
Closed.
- Sharp Incisions
