Just One More Year

I remember calling a family member and sharing about the challenges of readjusting to a new state when I heard the phrase, “it’s only one year.”

One more year…if only it were that simple.

What most may see as only one more year of training, I see as way more than that. I see 4 years of high school in a medical magnet program where the seed of being a doctor was first planted…where the intention was set to go on the path to becoming a doctor. I see 1 year in community college and 2 years at university completing pre-requisites graduating with a Bachelor’s in biology and a minor in psychology…I see the pure excitement and gratitude glowing through the walls of my heart when I got that call that preceded 4 years of medical school…I see graduating from medical school in an unconventional way as the epidemic was at its peak and starting a 3 year residency program in a whole new version of “normal”…and now I find myself here- in a one year fellowship…with the hopes of practicing on my own someday soon.

10 years…12 years if you count the college courses I took in high school…14 years total of setting the intention of embarking on the journey of becoming a physician, and out of those years I spent half of them away from home.

For some, that may not be a big deal, but for me being away from home during medical school, residency, and now fellowship has been difficult in more ways than I can describe to you. While a 4-hour plan ride verses a 4-hour drive are technically different, the time and distance apart feel the same.

I often struggle with the balance of progressing in my career while being so far from home. On the one hand, I am working hard achieving a dream I never thought possible by God’s grace and provision; while on the other hand I come home alone yearning for the physical, emotional, and spiritual comfort of those I love.

There are only so many times I can visit, so many days I can take off, so many moments I can cram together in my metaphorical snow globe before I return to my “routine”- hoping that those snowflakes never fade. And I wish I could say getting on the plane or getting back behind the wheel felt easier every time; instead, it just seems uncomfortably familiar and lonely eat time I say goodbye.

It hasn’t been easy to miss basketball games, graduations, birthdays, celebrations, trips, anniversaries, milestones, break-ups, make-ups, transitions into toddler-hood, transitions through primary and secondary school, transitions to college, and the transition into the ever constant phase of adulting of close family and friends. In fact, my soul aches as I feel the wear and tear of the years away in how relationships have changed over time and how little ones struggle to really recognize my face.

I know they understand, and while it is for a seemingly worthy cause, there are moments my heart aches in ways I worry no one understands…

It has been a privilege to serve in medicine, and it has truly been a gift to train where I have been and where I am now. I just wish it did not come at the heavy cost of what matters most to me…being close to my family and loved ones.

For now, I can only hope that I have finally reached the end of a long road of being away from home and pray that soon I will be re-united with my family again.

Until then, I choose to take one day at a time, trusting God to lead the way, knowing that my heart’s desire to be home again will indeed come true.