I sorta want to start dating but not enough to write a witty description of myself or to go on the requisite adventures one needs in order to demonstrate through photos their enthusiasm for life and show off their body. My life is too busy to swipe left or right, let alone download and manage a dating app.
One of the things that strikes me when I talk to other women who are physicians (particularly Ob/Gyns, cuz like, those are the ones I am talking with these days), is that whenever I talk about missing something in my kids’ lives they don't do that instinctive “awww” or “tsk-tsk” thing that I’ve experienced from so many other kinds of moms. It isn’t just super judgy SAHM vs WOHM dynamic. I’ve had other working mothers (though with arguably less insane schedules) do the pity voice when I talk about how busy I am. It doesn’t really serve me to have people react like that. On balance, I’m really happy with my choices. I am struggling with many things, including having borne and raised these amazing humans who I don’t get to spend as much time with as I’d like. But that isn’t a lamentable fact, it is a fact that comes with doing important and meaningful work and knowing myself well enough to know that I operate better with many irons in the fire. I’m frankly a less good mother when I have more free time. In my experience, doctor moms understand that balance, we understand what we're giving up, we know that we've made our choices and we are not apologetic about them.
After spending time with several married female resident & attending physicians and their spouses, I’m realizing that my relationship, relative to my career and the realities and demands of its pursuit, was even less supportive than I realized. Almost every interaction I have these days reinforces for me that whatever my struggles, I’m better off with the choices I made to single-parent during residency instead of keeping the tepid and sometimes outright antagonistic dynamic that I dealt with in med school.
“Next year, in Jerusalem” is an expression that I have stolen from the Passover seder and use for my own purposes. I love the sentiment of hope & optimism and of having a home place that this phrase engenders for me. I struggle with patience, with the incomplete mission, with the life in progress. Next year in Jerusalem is another permutation of This Too Shall Pass, which is a life and sanity saving mantra.
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