Spring is where transformation realizes. To me, there’s no better time in the calendar to turn a page. I’m sober from the holiday inebriations, not yet lost in summer’s warmth, and still inside the final reaches of winter. I haven’t forgotten the dark but I can see the sun.
On the phone Monday night, my mom told me she keeps a list of refusals—things she simply will not do. As we caught up, she was basking in the sunny glow of a surprisingly warm day, outside. That was one of her refusals; missing a beautiful day.
I liked that idea: a ‘No Trespassing’ sign for the soul.
Later that night, as I prepared for bed with the habitual brushing of teeth, washing of face, and applying of recommended skin care products by my wife, I wondered, “What can I no longer afford to do with my time?” Immediately, the answer came: “Be cruel to myself.”
You ever wish you could time travel back and give yourself a hug?
From third year of medical school through fourth year of residency—the gauntlet where I traversed from lost to found—my inner environment was painted by layer upon layer of self-blame and shame. I knew I didn’t want to be a doctor, but I kept doing it and I couldn’t find a way out.
You’re a fraud, you’re scared, you have no courage. This was the graffiti I sprayed on that inner landscape, inspired by depressions and failed escapes from a career that continued to ask for more and more of me. As I dragged through these seasons, I incorporated the graffiti into my soul. I saw it as reality.
By the end of residency, I was tired of that reality and tried to outrun it, using that hellscape as motivation to propel my exit from medicine. And to varying degrees, it worked.
Then.
As I’ve written before, my sun’s return to a cloudless sky has been slower than I anticipated. When I left medicine, I thought I’d be back in the light, never again knowing darkness. But change takes time and the dark likes a good fight. At times, it’s been all too easy to slip back into that old environment, believing in those messages I used to read on the walls, still repeating them to myself.
This week though, nearly a year and half after leaving medicine, I sense that I’m truly ready. Ready to build what my wife and I desire. Finally, at a far enough remove, I know this season is not that season because I don’t care to look back anymore. Through these essays, I’ve processed a lot and mourned even more. It’s been a tremendous blessing.
But that old graffiti, that cruelty, that shame, it has no home where I’m going, on the next page, just past the ‘No Trespassing’ sign.
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