With many of my friends and myself matching for fellowship in the last few weeks, I’ve been overcome with emotions that I have had a difficult time processing. I even had a panic attack the night before Match Day when I realized that there was a possibility that I could not match into fellowship. I was able to calm myself down by reminding myself that even if I did not match into palliative care fellowship this year, barring unforeseen circumstances, I would still graduate residency as a pediatrician. I also had just received my copy of home body by Rupi Kaur in the mail, so I calmed myself down by immersing myself in her musings as she dealt with life, love, loss, and depression.
One of her poems really spoke to me. Actually, at the time, I felt targeted and upset, as it definitely hit a nerve, though over the next few weeks, I was able to appreciate the sentiment. The poem was on page 27 of home body, and is transcribed below:
“i am trusting the uncertainty
and believing i will
end up somewhere
right and good”1
I definitely wanted to throw my book against the wall when I read it, but I later came to acknowledge how uncertainty contains its own brand of beauty. However, I also appreciate that I am privileged to be able to trust uncertainty and that being in an uncertain situation will often not cause me harm. We are living in a difficult time, not only with our careers in flux (for my colleagues particularly), but with mass death due to COVID-19 and its variants, destruction from climate crises, worsening child and adult mental health epidemics and poverty, an epidemic of systemic racism, and so much more. It brings up a lot of emotions, and as much as we do not have control of so many outcomes, it can be incredibly scary and almost impossible to believe that everything will be alright. And honestly, that is often justified.
The prompt for this week is this:
“Write about uncertainty.”
You have as much or as little time as you would like.
References:
- Kaur, R. home body. Andrews McMeel Publishing; 2020, p. 27.
More unedited writing of mine. Way more than ten minutes about uncertainty:
Why do I fear the future? Is it uncertainty I feel? But doesn’t that come with so much potential? Why does it scare me so much? What am I worried about?
Uncertainty just means I don’t know what will happen. I might achieve all of my goals without any setbacks. I might lose everything I’ve worked towards personally, professionally, physically, emotionally. Somebody I love could die. It’s all happened before. But honestly, whatever happens will likely be somewhere in between. There will be joy, there will be suffering, there will be contentedness, there will be boredom.
In fact, my emotions right now are helping me predict some of the future (though we all know how wrong these projections can be).
I feel pride at how much my colleagues and I have learned and grown over the past 2 ½ years of residency.
I feel unprepared to be a fully-fledged pediatrician in six months, as there is still so much that I don’t know.
I feel excitement to start palliative care fellowship at a program where I will be exposed to the full breadth of medical humanities in addition to incredible career mentoring and just getting to work with lovely people.
I feel grief at another year living in a difference city than my husband while also moving away from the wonderful friends and family I have made in residency.
I feel anticipation at finally finishing pediatrics residency and moving on to the field I want to work with for the rest of my life.
I feel anxiety about preparing for my pediatric board exam a full year after I have stopped practicing general pediatrics.
I feel sadness about no longer taking care of all of my continuity patients that I have grown to love in clinic. I will miss them deeply.
I feel trepidation moving away from my current home in Columbus to my new home in Akron, but exhilaration to make new routines, find new coffee shops, walking routes, parks, and bookstores.
I feel apprehension that I am not going to be able to handle the difficulty of pediatric palliative care. That I feel too deeply and I will be overcome by emotion too frequently for a life working in this field to be sustainable.
But mostly I feel grateful. Grateful to have a job, to have friends who love me and will keep in touch (#BookClub4Ever #WineAndCheese4Ever #NimsAndBad4Ever), to have a supportive husband and family who push me to fulfill my dreams, and to have learned and grown so much in a wonderful training program. If this is what uncertainty is, I can face it with my head held high one day at a time.
Writing for Wellness 