Today was such as incredible day. The last 24 hours felt like I was living the life of Flash the super hero whose super power is to do things really fast. Though quite uninteresting, I find myself wishing I had the same super power. Not for the power or glory or honor. (Are these lyrics to a song?). But because there are so many, many tasks to be done!
I felt like i was awake since 6 am: yoga, strength training, clinic, answering emails, answering messages, attending to concerns of patients, concerns of the family business, doing rounds, teaching students, managing anger, sucking it up, while trying to silence the voices in my head. I feel as though every time i look up from a task, an hour has passed by and I am running late. Always late.
Is this the curse, the speeding hands on the clock face as we grow old?
At times like these, when I find myself coming home late despite starting things early, i know it is the time for the pruning to begin. This is reexamination of the things that I am saying yes to, and letting go of the things that I REALLY don't want to do, but do anyway, either to please others, or because this is my younger self's version of success.
More recently, though, I catch myself viewing my life in reverse fashion. Not through the eyes of a 22 year old starting med school. Or even a 27 year old starting residency.
I now view myself, thinking through the eyes of myself on my death bed. Would I be really excited remembering that I spent my time meeting with the father of hemoperfusion? Would i really appreciate molding the minds of these seemingly hardened trainees whose ears seem to have thick skins and hard hearts due to the exhaustion of work?
The surprising answer is no.
I don't know when the change started, or when i began to favor the "easy life". I guess the pandemic had a strong way of making me re examine what is truly important, or what I would probably want to remember when lying on my death bed. People I love. Trips I took. People I laughed with. Patients and friends that I helped. The long walks amidst the trees in the UP academic oval. The wind against my face. Things that make me happy. Things that I don't need to worry about.
This question was more easily answered by a special phone call I made today.
While hurriedly checking my messages this morning, a viber notification came up. My Mentor, the One that influenced me to become a nephrologist, The Doctor and Attending of my mother, was celebrating her birthday today. Always remembering her influence in my life, I sent her a text message greeting her a happy birthday and thanking her for EVERYTHING through the years.
Sunsangnim, as I call her in in my K Drama Hospital Playlist Fantasy World, replied with a very cordial thank you, our first text message exchange in months. I have not bumped into her a lot in the hospital. I guess this is because she is in her 70s, and possibly winding down her medical career. Out of inspiration, I replied to her: telling her how I was, how my application the University which she supported was faring, how I got a new invitation to another institution nearer my place, if i could get her recommendation letter, the fellows I was training and all that.
I was half expecting a PTN (para tapos na): Congratulations, just create a recommendation letter, print it with my name on it, and leave the letter with the other documents that needed her signature, yada yada yada.
Her reply greeted me with surprise: Let's talk about it when you're free.
In the middle of my rounds and writing in the chart, I took a pause and reread the message.
I replied: Yes Sunsangnim, will meet you at your convenient time.
The convenient time was now. She said that I could call her. In the middle of the nurse's station, charts and all, reminiscent of the 90s when we would call the sender during the pager era, I called her at home through the landline.
Deliciously unexpected, it was like being flashed back in time to when landlines were in, phone calls were long and free. It was like half expected to be tortured during morning endorsements because she was a terror back then, but twilightzonely hearing a very. motherly voice that asked how I was. And she really LISTENED. Was it age? Was it the slowness of being retired? Or was she being how she really was?
Nag Telebabad Kami.
We exchanged so many stories. After digesting everything I said at length, she took a breath and very objectively gave her two cents based on her experience. She then concluded with her own experience of an invite, feeling like a stranger, deciding to go where she was comfortable, choosing what she wanted, giving up what she didn't, prioritizing, and deciding who she was.
Which is exactly where I am now.
At the end of the call, I felt relieved, centered, and reminded of my true north. Not the accolades, not the achievements. But the quality of life, the time to do what i wished, to be just a fish in a small pond. Simpleng Nephrologist, concentrating on other things, creating things, but moving on. And not staying at one place for too long. Not mixing with the toxicity that I didn't like. Above all, not being forced to do the things I didn't want to do. Being a quiet duck.
Maybe I thought I wanted the long patient lines, the awards, when I was in my 20s.
But now, imagining that I am in my 60s, I think what i want to have done in my 40s is to travel a bit. Walk around under the trees. Swim in the ocean with friends. Laugh with friends. Laugh AT people with friends. Be free from the rigidity we were so trapped in during training and just do what makes us happy.
I don't want to be Flash, rushing to do things. I want to be TAMAD. Because I can afford to be. I want to do medicine because I want to, not because I have to.
What a day. I would just like to freeze frame it so that I won't forget what I thought of today.
