My leap year thoughts

For all of you used to reading paragraph upon paragraph of wending tale, this blog entry is entirely different.  I finished my last ever job as a doctor one month ago today.  That is a big deal. Despite never really wanting to be a doctor (long story involving rejection from veterinary school) I have poured my heart and soul into it for fifteen years.  Over these last 29 days I have felt an unfurling, a me that isn't really sure what's going on but is excited by the prospect of finding out.  The next few lines are just jottings of thoughts and things that have found their way to the surface of my subconscious and onto the page. 

I am bitter. Not theatrically so, but I am surprisingly resentful of having wound up in my mid thirties not really having a clue who I am or where I am going.  Everyone else's lives seem so 'sorted'.. (of course I know the latter part of this to be absolute rubbish, but my brain can't help tormenting me with that notion).

I adore baking bread. Who knew?

Nobody cares that you are changing direction, but the ones that care about you are proud of you.  And that feels good.  If you are proud of someone, say so, it could change the trajectory of their life.

The more you talk about what you are going through, the more you realise practically everyone has been in the same boat somewhere down the line. Most people have at some point in their lives changed career. And the vast majority do not do at sixty what they did at twenty two. 

Freecycle is awesome.

Night shifts and 14hr weekend shifts are not normal work hours. Crying at work because you are too tired to think is not okay.  Absorbing emotional turmoil from patients, relatives, colleagues and co-workers is not what we were designed to do nor are we supported to cope with.  None of the bad sh*t that went on in hospitals was ever okay. It was traumatising and crushing and stressful and silenced.

Dog walks in the sunshine are about as restorative and healing as it gets.

So is wine. Particularly when drunk with best friends. 

Having the whole world as your oyster seems at the beginning harder than walking a single path. But secretly, if you hang in there long enough to find out, having the whole world is magical.

Creativity blossoms when it is given space to breathe.

Breathing is good.