Joy & Pain, Fitness, Seasoning

Ob, 10-27-2008
I wanted to be a comedienne but it would have been too hard to break into the business, so I went for med school. Isn't making people laugh and be appreciative of life the best experience ever?! That is why obstetrics was such a perfect fit for me-- short, targeted happy snippets of life shared with a complete stranger. A glimpse into true joy. Also, a chance to have a woman feel like she could conquer the world-- look-- she just pushed out a human! WOW! ...I am so damn lucky to do this for a living.
This year was full of new and different experiences. Let's just say, a year full of personal growth. Full of love, full of pain... Who would have thought 10+ years of OB practice and nearly 20 years of marriage would still bring on challenges? (Never mind our kids' challenges, and then I decided to be a triathlon "newbie"...)
It was a good year because I made many people laugh and feel good about themselves. It was a difficult year because like any woman on her journey in becoming "seasoned" I found myself changing fundamentally and those around me feeling rather... hapless. Like a some adolescent, with inexplicable changes (no dear friends, I am not talking about "power surges", the estrogen is still very there, thank you!).
Perhaps it is the typical "mid-life" thought process-- getting the sense of the 4th dimension (and working on understanding the nth!). Wouldn't it be amazing if truly the cosmos is one big spiral and one could jump from one part to another and reuite with beloved relatives who'd been gone and jump onto another part and see one's children get married and have children of their own-- and of course (because hey, I grew up in the communist republic of Cambridge) see world peace?