An Intern’s Prayer

Dear God,

Vacation  was surrealy beautiful….I ate well, slept well, was loved well. I was surrounded by beauty of surroundings, of relationships and immersed in a pool of acceptance and grace.  I gorged on the ease of knowing people so well that I didn’t have to work at it. Then it ended.

Internship in comparison is cold, painful and harsh.  I am back to being so tired (and i am pre-call) that I can’t make myself cook or go out because I am spoonless, cartilageless and a little blue. Its dark when I go work and dark when I come back. Its gray outside the window inbetween.   I am living off of canned goods and fantasy novels and my 1001 places to go before you die calender.

Please help me reconcile my two lives.

Love,

Amy

can’t leave your roots….

So I have been blogging for about six years, seven this May.   And I have done a lot of growing up during these past years. I discovered a love for the world’s children, I discovered pediatrics, I found my independence and young womanhood away from my family, I also found my way out of the church of my childhood that was  dying in legalism and tradition into a faith centered around the gospel opposed to man made institutions, I survived my first major medical endeavor as an adult, I have made huge decisions in terms of education,  faith, life and health that have been my own away from my family.   This year has brought my first real job, my first real house of my own and carving a life separate entirely from nearly everything I have ever known.

But in the end I am still the oldest daughter of a sailor and a homemaker who are conservative and despite their own attempt to break ties Southern Baptists.   I may be a moderate, woman physician at a top notch peds program, with friends who want to have jobs like pediatric heptatologist or oncological endocrinology.  I may go to a trendy, inner city, little church plant that meets in a recreational center, is striving to be intercultural and interracial and sometimes gets a little snobby about those churches in the suburbs. I may be able to quote pediatric HIV statistics, child poverty statistics of Cincinnati far better than I can tell you how to make a casserole or a family meal. I may be able to suture a squirming child’s face far better than I can sew a hem or knit a sweater but in the end…..

sometimes all I want is to be just like my Mom. (or perhaps even more my Mom’s sterotype)

Sometimes I fantasize about being married (and not just in the way that a single girl does this….married in the old fashioned 1950s, Lifeway Christian stores (SBC propaganda), Focus on the Family kind of way)….where I stay at home, go to woman’s bible studies, make cute little cup cakes for baby showers, have babies and raise them.

This is not in any way to belittle my Mom who I think is one of the strongest women I have ever known. And anyone who has met my Mom knows she is a force to be reckoned with in terms of getting stuff done, advocating for children or taking care of anything. Its just on the outside I think most people would assume that I have sort abandoned this kind of life with my choices and if you asked me straight out I would tell you, I love my job and I can’t imagine not practicing medicine.

But yeah  despite all my liberal education and independence I still can’t divorce the fact that there is something to be said for where I come from and I don’t think I can leave that behind blindly.     What that will look like medicine + stay at home Mom + living overseas…not sure.

But sort of excited about finding out.