I was fortunate enough to be contacted by Rose Raymond, a staff writer for the DO online magazine to discuss my blog and how it came to be. And so I gave my first ever interview halfway through third year of medical school - something I would have never in a million and one years imagined I would do.
To begin with she asked me the all important question - why did I start this blog to begin with in the first place?
And I had to stop for a second to think, to really think and figure it out. Part of me knew it was something I had to do if I got to this point, it was something I needed to do. And another part of me looked at the blogs out there and found that they were written by men - not to many written by the female voice, and I wanted to correct that.
But the bigger part, the part that I am hesitant to admit even to myself at times, was purely selfish. I waned to document this journey, yes, but I also wanted to prove to every single person along the way who told me I should not be doing this or I had no business doing this or I would never do this that not only could I do this but here is how I did it.
And then I felt more than a tad ashamed - I have not written as much as I should during this incredible journey. I am afraid my documentation skills are lacking at best, and permanently missing at worst. But as anyone with children and a life outside medicine knows - sometimes, no oftentimes, life has a funny way of sneaking up on us and getting in the way. Not that it si an excuse but I am afraid I have been a victim of too much life. Too much going on in first year to give it the attention that it needed, followed by the heticness of board prep second year followed by a major family issue that has needed far more attention than I could have ver imagined since January - and life has been messy. But as any nontraditional would tell you - life is indeed messy, sometimes messier than others and I unfortunately seem to be doing more cleaning up rather than managing lately.
I can make no promises but I am going to make more of a concerted effort to document the last leg of this journey - match *eek*.
And she asked me what I got from doing this. That answer came quickly - I get you all. When I least expect it, I get a comment left on my blog that reminds me there are others considering this path who have been told they can not or they should not or how could they - and I know that I must continue to shine a light down a path that was previously dark for them. I know I must show them that it can be done - with a lot of careful juggling and balancing and doing your best tightrope walker impression but that yes it can be done.
I think of the gentleman who approached me at the first health areer professions day I did as a medical student at MWU who was a non-traditional student and who told me he was there because my blog had made MWU seem like a very non-trad friendly place and accepting of its students. Both of the previous statements are very true in my experience, by the way. And I remember him telling me he was there because of me - because I showed that it could be done. I also remember the complete awe I felt at that moment - I had inspired someone I had never met and who did not know me from another person on the street to go down this path. Unfortunately, he did not keep in contact with me and I do not know what happened to him - but I often wonder if he followed his dream and where it may have landed him.
But mostly, while doing this interview I kept thinking of the quote which was on my graduation announcements from University of Wisconsin-Parkside:
"The only way of imagining the limits of the possible is to reach a little way past them into the impossible" Arthur Clarke
Thank your or riding with me on this impossible journey my friends - you provide strength in times when needed.
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