New Beginning

Take a deep breath. Here I go.

I stand at the edge of the rest of my life with a sense of uncertainty. After 11.5 years of higher education (3.5 years of college, 4 years of medical school with 1 year of pathology externship in the middle, and 3 years of residency), I am now free.

For the first time in my life I have no one to set my schedules or tell me what the next step is because there's no "set curriculum" or certain ladder to climb anymore. By the power of education I am now free to choose where to go--within the realm of family medicine, of course. I'm free to choose what to do--or what not to do. I am keenly aware of how precious this kind of freedom is, and I don't intend to waste it.

I jokingly say I'm now unemployed, which I know isn't very funny to my parents. The more accurate term would probably be "in between jobs", as I do have shifts signed up with a local urgent clinic and a locum tenens agency. The uncertain feeling is like one who has leaped and is in midair, having left the ground she is familiar with but has not yet landed on that promised soil ahead. What will I find when I land? Will I fall? Will the earth crumble under my poor judgment of a landing? Will I be doomed to so worry about the unknown that I cannot enjoy the fact, for this brief time, I'm light and free and happy?

Such are the feelings as I set off to my wandering, which is my rough draft for this next year. There are certain goals I hope to reach by my travels to small Kansas towns, Niger, and possibly Haiti, China, and Taiwan. I know I will be challenged, humbled, and changed, and I hope to emerge with a better sense of where I'm off to next. This is why I especially appreciate Lisa's quote to me, "Not all those who wander are lost", taken from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings:

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king