Yesterday, I graduated from medical school with my classmates. It had been a whirlwind last few weeks and an extraordinary last four years. They went by very quickly, yet were probably some of the most remarkable years of my life. I've gained wonderful friends that I hope never to lose touch with and I have chipped away a bit further at defining that thing that is my identity.
I don't know really how I feel right now. Not really relieved, as the hardest part of med school ended quite a few months (almost a year!) ago. Maybe a bit incredulous...no, that's not the right word...suspicious...about this whole MD degree thing. My stomach ties up in a knot everytime I think that someone would actually call me a doctor. I mean, technically, I'm a doctor, but not actually, right?
Then there's the bittersweet part of all of this, something that I am getting more and more used to as each new phase of my life ends and begins. The shelving of a lifestyle, of a group of friends, of weekly bar nights and pool games, of ridiculous parties with people I've come to be very close to, as we -nearly- all part and head off our separate ways. This happened after high school and college, then when I left my life in the Bay Area for medical school, and now, once more. (It happened -probably most traumatically- when I left family and friends in Poland as an 8 year old.) And I have no doubt that it will happen again.
It leaves a cramping emptiness in me; a yearning to settle down, once and for all. It numbs any aspirations I may have to pursue job/career/identity at all cost. I realize that that is probably why I wanted to buy a house these past few months, despite it being in the wrong city (and for me, at least, at the wrong time) and it definitely explains why I cannot see myself living further from my family than I am now.
Ahh...but these are not thoughts for blogs...
This past few week has been a blur. Nightly events/dinners/parties with classmates. Over this past year, my class has come together closer and closer. We are so different and yet held together by this remarkable shared experience. I hope to see all of them again in my life.
On Saturday, we all donned black velvet robes and black caps with green tassels, and walked across the stage to get our green hoods and medical degrees. The Mondavi Center was filled with cheering family and friends, and each one of us was allowed to have two people join us on the stage when we received our diploma. We entered and left the ceremony in a procession led by bagpipes. Everyone was nervously ecstatic pretty much all the way through the day, and even when everything ended, there was still a sense of unfinished energy in the air.
I came home too exhausted to sleep that night, and now a strange few weeks have begun. I've rented a house to live in for the next year, but will go and travel a bit more before moving in next week. Meantime, many of my friends are leaving, and though most are staying relatively near, all of us know that the residency years to come will magnify any distance there is. I start my internship in the cardiac intensive care unit in a little over two weeks, and the gravity of that thought is nearly suffocating.
For now though, I'm taking everything a day at a time. Sleeping, spending time with family, letting a bit of the early summer sun warm my skin, and trying to remember to breathe...
Here are a few photos from graduation day:
2 comments:
Awww. Well said. Stef said that she thought it was cute how you and I talked through almost the whole ceremony while most other people were silently contemplating the gravity of the situation. I just think they all weren't as good of friends as us. ;)
congratulations. :) wishing you all the best in your future medical career.
love,
Alek
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