“You were a really good psychiatrist; I looked up to you,” she said between margarita sips. “I never would have guessed.”
I guzzled half the lager in my right hand, then said, “Appreciate you saying that, really, but I suppose that says something in itself, right?”
We chuckled, took a brief stroll down our shared memory lane, where I was once her senior resident, and then our spouses were back at our sides, mine tilting her head toward the dance floor, a hint we should go enjoy another co-resident’s wedding: the reason we’d travelled to Southern California last weekend.
Since residency graduation—and since quitting medicine—the wedding marked my first appearance at a large-scale gathering of colleagues. A reckoning day and a coming-out party. I was nervous.
The next day, back in our North Carolina home, my wife and I unpacked. As I slotted my suit onto its hanger, hanging it deep in my closet, my wife asked, “So… how was it? Being back with everyone?”
“Hmm…,” I said, turning toward her. “I think it was the most I’d felt like myself, and probably… the first time I sensed I belonged with them.”
She nodded as we shared a glance of warm affirmation. Then, we finished unpacking.
To livin’ a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD