Breathing
I’ve been wanting to write something here since for a few days now, but every time I start, I hit backspace and discard. Here goes. Clerkship prior to the pandemic in many ways made me feel like a circus monkey, expected to juggle flaming torches and perform with a smile spread wide on my face. The reality is that I felt broken inside. The pressure to learn the quirks of a new rotation, different hospital, different EMR, mingle with a new team of staff and residents, study for and pass exams, and the need to impress and hold my fingers crossed for a decent evaluation. And often the feeling that no matter what we were doing, it wasn’t truly helping. You know how when you’re trying not to cry, you hold your breath and there’s the weird achy feeling at the base of your throat? As the months progressed, the pressure started to build and that feeling settled into my throat, expanded to my chest every time I took a deep breath to just get through the day. And then the pandemic happened; case numbers went up every day, and our health system and society at large were learning at rapid pace how to adjust to the “new reality”. News reports from China, Italy, other hard hit centers across the world poured in; it was terrifying. And decisions around continuing clerkship hung in limbo — we were told we’d be away for 3 weeks, and then 3 months.
That was the last push for me; the pin that burst the balloon. It was chaotic. It was cathartic. I relished the quiet that came with quarantine. It gave me room to exhale, and for the first time in months, to sleep without the fear of an alarm and tomorrow’s to-do list. I joined in on the #quarantinebaking. Kneading dough, the smell of fresh bread wafting through the house. Tending to the little cactus at my windowsill. Reading and writing for the joy of it. I wish it was all happy; we lost family and community members to covid and other things. But I had time and space to grieve with loved ones, without thinking about taking time away from school, how that would affect the future. And despite not being able to physically see people, I reconnected with friends and started mending old relationships.
Above all, I had the time to reflect. That despite clerkship having been awful at times, there were some truly amazing moments. Like the absolute privilege and wonder of seeing a birth, of counting down the pushes, and the sobs of relief and joy the new parents had in seeing and holding their baby for the first time. Of talking to a patient about the grief of losing a brother, and finding a spark of hope for the future. When I was a younger, there was a joy to going to school, to learn and be allowed to just be curious and wonder. And that’s part of what I found in those moments I described. But throughout medical school, with looming deadlines, and performance evaluations, exams, that ever present worry of matching, it’s like I never let myself be happy with learning for the sake of learning, never told myself that it was okay to make a mistake and learn from it, or care for someone for the joy of caring.
Clerkship starts again tomorrow. I am scared and anxious. I think it really helps to know that I am not alone in those feelings. I want to be able to go forward and hold on to some of the good things that have come out of all of this, but worry that things will fall back to what they used to be. I hope not.
— 2T1
