the beginning of the rest of my life
on hope and the freedom to dream
hello my loves, i hope september has been treating you well. i’ve been attempting to carve out a better routine in preparation for (medical) school to start (!!!) but this letter is still about a week late. my apologies.
i’ve been really struggling for the past couple of weeks, potentially a mix of “major life change” + adrenaline comedown from getting the results i wanted and needed + probably some latent terror that i won’t be good enough for this, but i’m working through it. i’ve always been one to look to the (uncertain) future in times of crisis, thinking about mustard coloured towels and mulberry gold-rimmed plates, and jars of honey on the counter and hanging herbs and colourful, mismatched mugs in glass cupboards. this is some kind of different hope. if i don’t fail out of medical school, this time in 5 years i’ll be a doctor. the only thing i have to do now is not fail. i can do that. i’m going to be a doctor!!
i don’t know when i decided i wanted to be one. it was some point around age 13, and it was decidedly not because i wanted to help people. selfishly perhaps, it was because i thought it was the only respectable and well-paid profession around. i stayed stuck in that mindset for a while, and then i fell in love. sometime around age 15, i realised just how much the human body fascinated me. “gosh, maybe i could love this.” astronomy was off the charts, because i hated physics, and however much i wanted to convince myself of the contrary, i was not nearly consistently good enough at art to hope that was a viable career option.
age 16, i signed myself up to an emergency medicine course. i'd already started loving biology and was genuinely excited about medicine and becoming a doctor, but those two days stand out as an absolute landmark in my desire to be a medical student. we ran through a day of lectures and then a day of simulations, and i watched the consultants and medical students in absolute abject awe at the professionalism and poise with which they carried themselves and their knowledge. when our year 12 student group fumbled at an 'uncooperative patient' or at doing cpr in an emergency setting, they all seemed to know exactly what to do. i did 2 days of work experience in a hospital after that and as i was leaving, was just filled with a... longing. to stay and learn. every time i saw hospitals or medical centres i would always wonder 'what would it be like working there?'
during my last exams i was working 6, 7, 8 or 9 hour days and feeling like i just had to keep all the plates spinning, just for a little while longer, and i was so worried it wouldn't be enough. and now i'm here. and there was confetti in the notification on the website. and a hundred people have congratulated me but i couldn't be more proud of myself. i just wish i could go back and tell my younger self who didn't see a future for herself that we made it. we actually made it. what an absolute joy. i can’t stop smiling.
hammond b3 organ cistern - gabrielle calvocoressi
i have a silly little habit i picked up as a kid of just scanning text instead of really reading it. i did that to this poem, months ago. maybe a year ago. so now i’m trying to write down poems that mean a lot to me, just so it really sinks in. i cried twice while writing this one down. “why don’t we talk about it? how good it feels.”
currently reading cuddy by benjamin myers and enjoying it far more than i had first thought. the first 20 pages were not representative of the rest of it which is such a shame because i almost put it down!! i need to meet my book goal for this year so dnf’ing this 400+ page book felt like a failure. i’m so glad i continued - myers plays with formatting and perspective so cleverly and i’ve put it on my to-buy list for the same reason that cloud cuckoo land is, because i sometimes forget how beautiful and captivating literature can be. i need to remind myself of it.
(on that note, please do hope that i get somewhat close to my book goal this year - i set an optimistic 30 books, with a page goal of 10000 and i’m… worried i won’t make it again. it’s alright, of course, but i just want to feel like i finished something i started for once.)
love letter to my years-old mentor. i’ve never found her again, not after hours of searching. i don’t know if she changed her name or doesn’t want to be found but i’ve been sending silent prayers up that she somehow understands how deeply she affected me. i still have a jar of lavender from 2019 that my mentor picked for me and told me to keep. it still smells exactly how it used to. when i showed her the jar the day after my anxiety attack, she called it “a jar from heaven.” she was the kindest, most gentle and understanding person i knew. maybe i would have figured it out on my own without her, but i will never forget the hug she gave me on a chilly winter morning when i had fallen out once again with my parents, and didn't feel like going to school for the rest of the day. she always wanted me to try. she always sent me back to my lessons, and i know why she did. i felt so hopeless back when i was with her, and i wish she could see me now. so, sending a cosmic thank you to wherever she is out there in the big wide world.
there’s a restlessness i’ve been feeling for the past couple of weeks. i need my life to start, i need to get out of this house, i need to be useful, i need to learn. i watched a video of a medical school graduation, and the speaker ended with “go forth and heal.” i’m collecting mantras, and i know that will be one of them.
sending everyone lots of hope and strength for the coming winter months. i’ll attempt to be on time next month!
yours,
- august 🌙