What could have been

Listening to music with electronica roots, downtempo influences, use of modal harmonies, and inventive instrumental arrangements somehow takes me back a few years and makes me re-think my life's choices. I guess I listened to a lot of this during first year, when a lot of things seemed to change in my life. Whether these things were good or bad (most of the time I think they were really, really good) doesn't matter, but sometimes I think about what could have been...

I think about my past friendships, and I realize that so many of my friends are getting married, buying houses, and having babies. They're little homemakers, they go to work everyday (and their work stays the same from month to month) and they seem generally satisfied. They go on vacations and are pretty domestic. That life, while it may sound a little boring, is sometimes exactly what I want. I want to go to work every weekday from 9-5 and then sit around enjoying my house and family on evenings and weekends.

The further along I go with this med school business the more I wonder if my life will ever be like that.

I don't know what the next 7-10 years hold (after which Chris and I will both be finally done with residency and finally joining the "real world") so I can't really settle in one place. My job will change from month to month for at least the next four years. Every month learning new things, helping different people, exploring new areas of the hospital and figuring out my superiors' expectations for the month. Never really knowing when I will get home, when I will get a day off, not being able to make doctor and dental appointments for my own health, and constantly striving to be better than I was yesterday.

In ways it sounds great and new and exciting, but in other ways it sounds stressful. The unpredictability of it all is frustrating sometimes. Even after the next 7-10 years, neither one of us is likely to have a 9-5 job, as there will always be call, emergencies, and long days at the office/hospital where our patients will need us at the expense of our family. I don't want my job to be my life, but the further I get into this the more I realize that maybe it has to be. Especially until residency is over.

I suppose I just have to take each day (and each rotation month) as it comes, as a challenge and a chance for me to excel and do my best and really do what I wanted to do all along - help others. Family, friends, homes, and everything else will fit in there someplace.

Maybe I just should change my Pandora station ... I think I'll go make dinner and listen to "Bootylicious Radio."

(Yes, that's exactly what you think it is) :)