Transitions

I once described my career path before to a medical colleague (who was also my boss at the time) and likened it to a walkalator. Those convenient belts along airports that you step on and without much effort, get to where you want to go.

I won’t be the one to tell you that medicine (both school and subsequent training) is easy-peasy. No, it isn’t. Even before stepping into its daunting halls, I knew it was a vocation. A privilege.

But as I neared the end of 15 years of education & training,  a strange predicament somehow lodged itself inside my head. A seed of a thought that didn’t go away, even when I went into more & more specialized training, training I had thought all my grown life was my sole calling and life mission. A dangerous thought, if followed through to the end.

I have reached the end of that walkalator, yet stepping off it doesn’t really seem like an achievement. This isn’t it, somewhere (someone?) deep down said.

Those (familiar-but-somehow-far-away) feelings of thrills/chills up and down my spine that were abundant during the early years were curiously absent. I didn’t feel that I was “all” there. I was drifting and sadly, empty.

Previous entries (or more specifically their absence) can attest to that.

I felt like a balloon slowly but surely floating and the “self” that went about doing everything with my body and saying everything with my mouth – was only holding onto that balloon-self with a string. Only a string connecting me to the truth.

For a long, LONG, long time, I hid from that truth.

I considered my flailing and my disengagement as proof of my deficiencies – that I only needed to put more back into it, more time, more energy, etc. But none worked. Surprisingly, the survivor instinct in me still rallied to find a solution, refusing to give up.

I attended spiritual talks, self-improvement workshops. I went into online counseling, counseling with a family/marriage counselor, a psychiatrist. They temporarily provided me brief respite but in the end, I knew the problem would always circle back to me. No one else to blame…

Not the rigors of my career, Not my parents. Not my colleagues at work or my bosses.

And somehow that made me feel even more hopeless… more alone.

Then, a fork in the road.

The School of Life says breakdowns happen because it is a way that our Inner Self delivers a message. The Inner Self, rich with the wisdom of experience our Outer Self often just glosses over or denies… A message that CHANGE is imminent and urgent, for Survival/Growth to happen.

Not a few weeks ago, I was forced to consider between two futures (details of THAT can fill another entry) and I chose one. Both carried its own consequences, both would require me to go through massive suffering, now and in the future.

But for the first time, in a long time, I stopped to ask myself what I wanted, what I really really wanted. What kind of life and what kind of future I would regret not living through if I said No. Fears hounded me if I chose that path, because I would definitely hurt people I love, people close to my heart. But I asked myself – if I chose My path and because of that choice, had to weather storms and such, would I still be happy?

I didn’t need to pause, it was an automatic Yes.

Then one by one (as if I had pressed a secret button or said the veritable Abracadabra), arrows that pointed down a different path – off that Walkalator path – began emerging. Each small act I made towards that different direction, somehow gave Me back to Myself.

And when I revisited my earlier thought – that in the end, the common thread running through all my miseries was Me – it didn’t seem dark at all. It was liberating.

To be honest, nothing really had changed on the outside. I was still going into the profession I trained for. Still several pounds overweight. Still struggle with getting the words out of my mouth and the message across.

But then, there WAS a difference. This time, the roles I played fell away (fellow, daughter, girlfriend, doctor, best friend). This time, I didn’t ask “What kind of fellow/daughter / girlfriend/doctor/friend should I be?” I just only needed to ask Me. My values, my vision, my limits, the shit sandwich I can stomach eating…  Live to the fullest of my authentic person.

Subconsciously – the career I was building up towards and the partner I chose – all aligned with that. And when I had it laid down before me, the facts staring me in the face… the dark tendencies and the harsh inner voices began to fade.

I had every reason to feel Whole. There it was, I only had to own up to it. To claim responsibility for my losses and emptiness led me towards the path of claiming my joy. It’s a small step, but a step in the right direction.

love after love – derek walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.