Monday, May 11, 2009

Sullied

I keep wanting to steer this back to my optimistic posts about learning the oboe, but instead I feel the need to vent about completely unrelated negative feelings instead.

I thought I was done grieving over medical school, but apparently I'm not. I may no longer be in the deepest part of the ditch, but I'm still muddied. And I think that in order to clean myself off I need to deal with all these feelings instead of pushing them aside.

The other day I was going to make a post entitled "I'm a loser". That's exactly how I felt that morning, and that entire week. Driving up to work evokes feelings of disgust in me because every morning I remember my triumphant "last drive" up here. Back then the possibilities were endless. Now I'm back like a dog with its tail between its legs. What is there to look forward to in this place? Though I did what seemed to be the best thing for my family for now, some days I feel ashamed that I sold my soul for 80k.

God has blessed me with a lot of gifts. Or maybe it's just one gift that manifests itself in many ways. Let's call it "learning agility". This has allowed me to pick things up very quickly, particularly academics, but it works well with art and even physical activities too (or at least it used to). All my life I've felt compelled to learn new things and master them, but in the end I am not great at anything. I guess the gift is a double-edged sword. I think I've never learned to really work through things to get to the next level. I like things in the beginning when they're easy and once I have to put in more effort, things lose their lustre. There are many reasons why I wanted to become a physician. But I suspect one of them was that I saw in it my sole chance to finally become great at something. It was supposed to be something beautiful and noble, that would combine goals in several areas of my life. Giving that up has left a hole in me that I am not sure I'll ever be able to fill.

I'll try for sure. I'll try to focus on all those other unfinished things in my life. And I will focus on become the best Mom ever. But I know I will fail at that, because as a human we all do. No one can be perfect. But I already feel the unrest building inside. The urge to hate myself again. But this is not the model I want to set up for my beautiful daughter. I want her to be strong and self-confident. I want me to be strong and self-confident.

This weekend I felt good, and got a glimpse of a different life (sans medicine) that could perhaps still be fulfilling. I'll still be scheming my way back in the back of my head, but I intend to focus on all that I have, instead of what I have lost.

I'm going to build the life that I want. But I know that before I do that I still have to face a few more demons.

Ok, now I can get some work done.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Weekends

It's about 12:45 am and I just finished putting away the clothes that I laundered earlier. So I am officially done with all the errands for the weekend and can relax for a bit. Oh wait, it's already Monday morning. WTF!

There are many things about being a working mom that suck. One of them being that you have almost no time for yourself. I'd heard people complain about it before but never appreciated it until just now. In terms of "me" time this weekend, all I had was when I sat down to watch a 1 hour show on my DVR. And since I skipped the commercials, it wasn't even a full hour to myself. Holy moly! So now I am facing an entire new week of work and I didn't have a chance to unwind. God help me.

Saturday was a wash. I took Alanis to her little gym class then back home from nap. Then I got paid for a 30 minute survey on appliances. I was supposed to be at quintet rehearsal all that time, but I got confused with the date, and they ended up finding a flute player to sub for me. Afterwards, we went to DH's cousins' wedding. By the time we got back home it was baby's bedtime. Oh I did get to play WoW for a bit on Saturday, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Today we tried to cram in all the errands that should have happened over the two days. Did I mention that we got invited to said wedding at the last minute (after I had jam packed the weekend)? First to Home Depot to peek at window treatments. Why does everything have to be so complicated? I just need to replace the ugly ass cheap fabric vertical blinds with unsafe cords that we have. Why are there so many choices in blinds nowadays? And why did I fall in love with the expensive ones like always? So then back home for nap #1. Made my special breakfast smoothie (a knockoff of the discontinued Mango Passion fruit smoothies once offered at Dunkin Donuts). Baby woke and ate lunch then we went to Costco. BIG CROWD. Next, the regular supermarket, More people (all probably on the same frantic race that I was). Back home for more laundry. Then dishes and mop the kitchen floor. Put baby to sleep. More laundry. Plan trip to NC. Fold laundry. Relax on bed. Ahhh.

Hmm, not sure why I am breaking my blog hiatus with this babble. But I just needed to get rid of some of this manic energy.