Moving with Boxes

Hi! I am so excited to join this community. I have been following since applying to medical school 6 years ago and now, med school and 2 kids later, am honored to be able to share with this community more regularly.

I am usually an upbeat, sunny side up, West Coast girl. But I would like to introduce myself with a post that bares my soul and reflects a more raw version of myself. Below is what I wrote 3 days ago, the night before getting on a plane with my husband, kids, and dog, to fly across the country to start EM residency. With the chaos of moving I didn't have a chance to share until today. I'll hopefully post a more positive update later next week!

I'm flooded. And overhwlemed. and the dam that has been holding my emotions at bay has broken and every thought, fear, feelings of guilt, absolute fear, and sense of desperation keeps washing over me, unrelenting, like a wave, as I fight the current in the tumult of emotions  that keeps pounding relentlessly. 

let me backtrack. 

when I fell in love with emergency medicine the beginning of 3rd year, I knew that was the only field of medicine for me. the pace, the variety, the sense of camarederie, the fast paced atmosphere. I was hooked. I also knew that getting a residency position in my home town would be a stretch. my step 1 scores were okay, but test day was blunted by braxton hicks contractions and running to the bathroom with my 8.5 month waddling belly and I underperformed all my practice tests by about 10 points. so when eras and interviews started, i knew that moving away from my hometown was a real possibility, if not probability. 

on match day, i told me parents and grandparents and aunts and siblings  (who all live within a 5 mile radius of me and the med school) not to come. i knew i would not get in to the top 10 rated programs in my hometown. i was right, and opening that envelope ensured that my husband, 2 kids, and i would be traveling for an adventure across the county for at least the next 3 years. 

i went into GO mode. i found a house, registered the kids for school, hired a moving company, organized a goodbye party. but we leave tomorrow. and i am now terrified. 

i had my daughter, Chicken, a few months before starting med school and my son, Monkey, after Step 1. My kids go to my parents every day after school and most weekends when i need to study. They play at my grandparents' house on Sundays. My aunts and siblings have driven more carpools and orgsnized playdates and provided last minute babysitting more times than i can count. and now i am leaving the village that helped my little family thrive in med school and we are leaving so so far away where we have none of that.

i am just so scared. so scared that my kids will feel lost and alone. so scared that they wont be able to continue strengthening the amazing relationships they have with their grandparents and great grandparents. so scared that i will ruin or permanently derail my husbands career. so scared that it is all my fault because chose too competitive of a residency and wasnt good enough to get in at home. 

i love my program. i am going to love residency. im just so scared of what i am going to mess up in the process.