From Culture Shock to Finding “Home”: Life Lessons from Living Abroad

From Culture Shock to Finding “Home”: Life Lessons from Living Abroad

by | Jan 26, 2025 | Perspectives, Writings

It has been almost 20 (!) years since I graduated from college, and since then, I have moved homes 11 times to 6 different cities in 3 states and 2 countries. The average person moves 11.7 times in their lifetime. (My lifetime total is 17.) 

Some aspects of moving are exciting: a fresh start, a new city to explore, new friends to make. But moving is difficult. The logistics and expenses that come with moving are burdensome. Saying goodbye to people you love is really sad. Trying to make new friends becomes more challenging the older you get. Adjusting to a new place – its climate, traffic, grocery stores, housing options, local culture, local services, the food scene, and more – takes a lot of time and physical, mental, and emotional effort. Adding pets and small children into the mix complicates moving even more. 

Some moves I couldn’t wait to make; others I dreaded. One year, after a particularly difficult move, I began to wonder if I could use my prior experiences to help me shift my perspective. In my early twenties, I spent two years abroad studying and working, and it dawned on me that the lessons I learned about adapting to life in another country and culture could be applied to any move, anywhere. Those lessons came from going through what’s known as Culture Shock.

Three months after I graduated from college, I moved to Spain to spend a year getting a Master’s Degree in Spanish at Middlebury College’s campus in Madrid. Upon our arrival, all students were required to attend an orientation session. The program director covered all the basic introductory topics like academic expectations, health and safety, housing, etc. It also included a lecture on Culture Shock, now more commonly referred to as Cultural Adjustment, which is the  process of adapting to a new country and culture. By learning about the stages of Culture Shock, she explained, we would know what to expect  over the next several months as we adapted to our new environment. 

The four stages of Culture Shock are generally accepted to be Honeymoon, Hostility, Gradual Adjustment, and Acceptance, though they are sometimes called by different names. The Honeymoon phase, the director said, would last anywhere from 1-3 months. Everything would be new, interesting, and exciting. Then around months 2-3, Hostility would probably set in. We would likely feel frustrated or irritated with how different everything was and how hard it could be to do basic tasks. For some of us, these challenges would be compounded by discrimination. We might start to fixate on “how much better” everything was back home. Somewhere around months 6-9, Hostility would slowly give way to Adaptation and Acceptance. We would become more relaxed as we gained a sense of humor about cultural differences and our own mistakes. We would begin to feel “at home” in the new culture, having adapted to its norms and standards.

I did indeed move through each of the four stages that first year. When I first got to Madrid, it was fun to notice all the differences between there and home, and every new challenge felt like an adventure. It was exciting to try new things. I felt so much pride when I completed a simple errand or got somewhere without getting lost. But as time went on, those positive feelings gave way to exhaustion and annoyance. I grew tired of everything being so hard. It was draining to perform the mental and emotional gymnastics required to do daily life in another language. The streets began to feel too loud, the people seemed too harsh, and one day I decided I just didn’t like it there and never would. About month 4, I remember going to the program director and telling her I had had it, that I didn’t want to leave yet, but I also didn’t know how I was going to finish out the school year. I remember her telling me that everything I was feeling was valid and that if I could just hang in there a little longer, I would probably start to turn the corner. And if not, I could come back and we would talk again. 

I did some surface-level things that helped my adjustment over the next several months.  I moved to a new flat, made a few local friends, enrolled in a Spanish cooking class, and started going out more. But I also did some intense psychological work. I went through a sort of personal identity crisis – Who was I? What did I believe? Why? I thought critically about my own cultural assumptions, beliefs, and norms. I became more open to other ways of existing in the world and even adopted some of them. Then one day, I realized I was comfortable doing almost everything and interacting with almost anyone. It no longer drained me to buy shampoo, get on the metro, talk to a store clerk, or buy medicine at the pharmacy. I loved and appreciated things about Spain that I hadn’t before. While I more or less looked the same on the outside (minus a very Spanish-looking haircut), on the inside, I was fundamentally, irreversibly changed.

By the time the school term was over that first year, I had signed a contract to teach English in a school outside the city. I would stay to live and work in Madrid for a second year, which is when I think I completely adapted to living in Spain. I experienced being employed in another country and being even more on my own, without the structure and support of the American school program. I lived a pretty routine daily life, working at the school, doing English lessons in the evenings for extra money, going out with friends or traveling on the weekends when I could. I truly felt at home.

Toward the end of my second year, almost all the friends in my social circle decided they would be moving elsewhere, either out of the city or out of the country. Their programs were ending, they were taking new jobs, they were moving closer to family. I was in a romantic relationship, but it was coming to an end. My Spanish school offered to give me a permanent contract, which meant I could stay indefinitely to work in Spain. But I realized that I did not want to make a career out of teaching English abroad, and I didn’t have it in me to build a social circle from scratch again. So I, too, decided to move late that summer, back to the States.

When I returned home I was met with the harsh reality of Reverse Culture Shock. I hadn’t driven a car in almost 2 years. I also had to buy a new one. I had to get a new American phone. Smartphones had come onto the market in the U.S., changing the way people communicated and behaved, and it was jarring. I was so overwhelmed on my first trip to the AT&T store that I couldn’t even bring myself to pick out a phone and had to try again another day. Other once-routine things also seemed absurd. I vividly remember walking through an American grocery store and thinking that it was ridiculously enormous. 

I had changed, but everyone and everything at home had more or less stayed the same, and no one understood what I had just done. It was incredibly lonely. I was actually homesick for Spain. I had to go through the cultural adaptation process all over again, this time in reverse. It took almost another two years before things felt “normal” again.

The lessons I learned from Culture Shock have turned out to be invaluable for navigating other moves. I know I need to give myself at least 6-9 months to adjust, and about 2 years to feel settled. During that time, I could apply the same process that helped me turn Spain into home:

  1. Observe. Notice. If I’m judging, I ask myself why and dig into that. 
  2. I remind myself: The discomfort is where the growth happens. It’s in those tough moments that we build resilience, flexibility, openness, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, humor, gratitude, and acceptance—of both ourselves and others—if we’re willing to embrace it
  3. Feel all the feelings. They are all valid. Seek support if needed.
  4. Create joy. Find tiny moments that bring happiness. Try something new that seems manageable. Plan something to look forward to.
  5. Find community. It might just be one good friend, but sometimes that’s all we need.

For me, it’s been most helpful to apply these steps to my frequent moves. For someone else, maybe it reminds them to give themselves grace while adjusting to something else, like a new job, an injury or illness, or becoming a parent. Either way, to an extent, this process can apply to pretty much any big transition in life. Any of these experiences can break us or transform us, depending on how we move through them. 

Living abroad forced me to closely examine how I had been seeing, understanding, and doing quite literally everything. It taught me how to handle loneliness and unfamiliarity, how to deal with the fear of the unknown, how to be resilient in the face of change, and how to have confidence in myself and my intuition. I still struggle with all these things, don’t get me wrong – but referring back to my these experiences gives me some hope I can get through it. Wherever I move and whatever I do, Spain is still with me, teaching me to hold on tight, observe without judgment, feel my feelings, stay in the discomfort, have courage (and a sense of humor!), create opportunities for joy, connect with a community, and make small changes day after day until things get better, because on the other side, I’ll always find home again.

 

 

 

 

 

Secrets of a Time-Traveling Mother

Secrets of a Time-Traveling Mother

by | May 10, 2024 | Motherhood, Writings

 Motherhood has been full of surprises. 

For instance, since having children, I’ve become a crier. I’ve come to understand why sleep deprivation is a form of torture. I’ve been astounded by how much of myself I have had to face while learning how to parent another human being. Little did I realize that having children would forever alter my perception of the world – from the intricate patterns of tree branches, to the shapes in the clouds, to the colors of a sunset.

And there are plenty more. But there’s one surprise that crept up on me, unspoken and unanticipated: the secret superpower of maternal mental time travel.

Mothers seem to possess a special talent for traversing time in our minds, effortlessly leaping forward or backward in time at the sight of a sock, the smell of a certain food, the touch of a hand, the sound of a song or a familiar voice. At the slightest sensory input, we are transported to real moments in the past, to possible moments in the future, and then back again to the present moment.

Propelled by our bonds with another human who changes and evolves nearly every day, we are transported – sometimes gradually and gently, and other times at whiplash speed – to cherished memories from the past or to future moments we hope to see.

Coined by Thomas Suddendorf and Michael Corballis, “mental time travel” refers to the ability to mentally reconstruct personal events from the past and construct potential events in the future. Suddendorf and Corballis, along with many other psychologists,  have posited that the ability to mentally time travel is one of the essential traits that separates humans from animals. Some go so far as to say that mental time travel lies at the very heart of human consciousness. In other words, mental time travel is a generally human characteristic – most of us travel in time in our minds. 

That said, I’ve come to believe that mothers are more frequent time-travelers than most. Propelled by our bonds with another human who changes and evolves nearly every day, we are transported – sometimes gradually and gently, and other times at whiplash speed – to cherished memories from the past or to future moments we hope to see. With each imaginary trip we experience a myriad of feelings, from nostalgia and fear, to amusement and delight, to anticipation and hope. 

It is our children, of course, and the things that pertain to them, that are our Mandalorians.

We can find a child’s tiny sock, and in a flash, we remember a time years ago when they wore it on a walk to the park. It was sunny and hot, and they kicked it off, and we had to double back to pick it up. We experience a wave of sadness that they are so much bigger now and that their tiny, simple newborn phase will never come again; immediately followed by an ocean of gratitude that they are healthy enough to have outgrown that miniature sock. 

In the parking lot of the grocery store, we grab a little hand and are carried back to a time when they held our hand in a different parking lot, and their fingers were so much smaller, and they looked up at us mid-stride and said, “I love you soooooooo much Mama.” Then we squeeze their hand just a little tighter because we can suddenly envision them in the future, not wanting or needing to hold our hand in the parking lot any longer. 

We will be up to our elbows in bubbles while bathing kids in the bathtub, and suddenly in our minds, we are walking through that same house, with other people’s stuff in it because it wasn’t yet ours, talking about how we really wanted a bathtub because God-willing we would bathe our future children in it. And there we are actually living that dream, and we feel so lucky that we get tears in our eyes mid-lather. 

Every now and then, a perfect stranger will initiate our flight’s take-off. An older woman will smile at us in the middle of some exhausting task and say, “Oh, I remember those days!” as they embark on their own mental journey. When they’ve walked away, we imagine ourselves in the future as the perfect stranger who has survived or thrived in whatever it is we have been doing, and turns and says to a younger mother,  “Oh, I remember those days!” And then one day, in the blink of an eye, it is us. 

While mental time travel is a universal human trait, mothers must have platinum status with unlimited access to all the lounges, upgrades, and perks.

The more experience we gain as mothers, the more we start to anticipate the inevitable end of certain phases, some of which seem to drag on interminably, and others that seem to be gone in no time at all. We start to wonder if this is the last time we are ever going to pick them up, or give them a bubble bath, or lie in bed with them. Maybe it’s their last game, their last performance, their final night at home. We live in the present wondering quietly if, or counting the days until, something so habitual and routine is about to become the past forever. We are always keeping an eye out for glimpses of our children’s future selves, which only brings who they are right now into sharper relief. 

While mental time travel is a universal human trait, mothers must have platinum status with unlimited access to all the lounges, upgrades, and perks. The bonds we share with our children – physical, emotional, spiritual – fuel our travel across time, to moments we have lived with them, and to potential moments we hope they will experience. Children learn, grow, and change so quickly that we mothers are constantly confronted with the fact that time is elapsing, that we are each living our one life right now. We can’t help but possess a hyper-awareness of time and the relationship between the past, the present, and the future.

Mental time travel is how we adapt to the complex, ever-changing environment of motherhood, and more broadly, to life in general. Remembering the past helps us to recognize what we know. Drawing on our past experiences and present hopes and fears enables us to imagine new possibilities. Both reminiscing about the past and envisioning the future help us to reframe the present. But it’s more: maternal mental time travel is also an expression of motherly love, a love that transcends time itself, enabling us to cherish our children not only in the present moment but also in memories of the past and in dreams for the future. 

When I became a mother, I found all this mental time travel astounding. It’s occasionally unsettling, sometimes thrilling, and at times exhausting. But these journeys of the mind, with all their secret layers and sacred moments, their surprises and challenges, ultimately embody the very essence of motherhood: a love for our children that cannot be bound by time and space, for it is timeless, eternal, unending, forever. And to anyone who’s experienced the boundless love of a mother, that is no surprise at all.

Piano

Piano

by | Jan 8, 2024 | Perspectives, Writings

I don’t know what made me do it.


It could have been my emotions running high from the difficult interaction I had at work that day. Maybe it was watching (really watching) my 6-year-old rehearse a piano piece from memory. 

I sat down at my 20-year-old electric keyboard and played a song in its entirety for the first time in nearly seven years.

I began taking piano lessons around age seven and continued them through college. In high school, I barely had time to practice because I was involved in so many other things, but I had a wonderful piano teacher, Mrs. Shannon, who allowed me to come to her once a month and practice on my own in between. We always worked on one classical piece and one fun piece, which kept me interested and playing. (Parents, if your older child wants to quit around this age, I highly suggest this as an alternative if you can swing it! Just. Keep. Playing.) In college, I was a music major for a year (Vocal Performance), and even after I changed majors, I still signed up for a piano course every semester just so I would keep up my skills. After college into my 20s and 30s, I had gone a year or two at most without playing, so this was by far the longest drought.

Over the last several years, I would get out the keyboard and set it up in a desperate attempt to give back to myself during some of the most challenging years of my life. Playing has always, always brought me joy. But rather than sit down to play, I would walk by it with a twinge of disgust as I noticed the dust settling onto the keys that never got played, resentful of its presence while I ran around taking care of small children and working multiple jobs teaching, tutoring, and copyediting while my spouse was working the longest hours of his career in medical residency.

This particular day, however, as if on autopilot, when I saw my son get up from the piano bench, I went to the coat closet and reached into the plastic bin that held my music. I hesitated for a second; What should I play? “Something easy,” a little voice told me. “Something you can play right here, right now.” So, I lifted the books of classical pieces and slipped out from under them a binder of pop music.

I braced myself for disappointment: What if it’s too hard now? What if I’ve lost it completely? I would be crushed.

I cautiously picked a simple, repetitive song with major chords and a pleasant tune. My fingertips rested delicately atop the glossy keys. I checked the song’s key and glanced at the sharps. My hands moved a bit clumsily through the piece, halting far too long between bars to find my place for the next phrase. But even as my transitions stumbled along, I felt my elbows drop, my body start to lean into and out of crescendos and pianissimos, my muscles and my soul recalling how good it felt to express themselves in this way.

I tried to sing the words as I played, but my throat kept catching. All I could think was, it’s still there, I’m still there.

I have no illusions that I’m going to begin playing every day, or that this will be the beginning of some remarkable musical revelation. (In fact, I’m sure the only reason I got through one whole song was because I had given all the kids an iPad.) But by playing the keyboard that day, I resurrected abilities that I thought had disappeared forever, rekindling a long-dormant spark of joy that comes from making music. My ability to play (not as well as I used to, but still!) and my love for music had indeed survived years of neglect amid phases of life where my own needs have often been last on the list.

I think this happens to many of us – after a certain age, we don’t think much about what brought us joy as kids because we are so focused on all the responsibilities of adulthood. We have to set aside hobbies and generally things we used to love to do, to build careers, serve as caregivers, or whatever else we have been called to do. It’s often accompanied by guilt and shame that we let that thing go, that we’ve never taken the time to restring that guitar, write that novel, practice that language, or play as much as we used to.

I have felt all these things. This is why I used to be so repulsed by the presence of the piano in the middle of a phase of life that did not allow me to sit at it because, by the time I could, I had absolutely nothing left to give. I imagined the critics: “You only have one life! Take the bull by the horns! You must MAKE the time!” And the often miss-contextualized “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” from Mary Oliver. 

And then, a wise friend said recently: “Resting is not quitting. I can take a nap and my God-given assignment will still be waiting for me when I wake up.”(Thank you, Morgan.) And that very day I decided I was not going to beat myself up for these pauses anymore. 

We are only human, and there are a finite number of hours in a day, and life just doesn’t often afford us the privilege of reviving an old pastime. This is part of the organic ebb and flow of life, where in our youth the focus is generally more on ourselves, and as we get older our focus grows outward to include our inner circle of family and friends, our circles of professional influence, our greater purpose on earth, even society as a whole. It is not a moral failure to have to put a hobby aside; it is natural. And just because we must take a hiatus from something that we love does not mean we have quit, as my friend so sagely ascertained; those sparks that God (or whomever you believe a higher power to be) places in our souls from the time they are formed are a part of our assignment, and it will not be rescinded; it will be waiting for us when we are ready to return to it. You cannot miss your boat. 

So what I’m trying to do now is to simply pay attention when I feel the tug at my soul to do something I miss and love. In my case, it’s usually playing music and writing. If I can do something, I start small so that I can be successful: a simple song, or some stream-of-conscious morning pages. I allow myself to celebrate the muscle memory that still hasn’t faded, or the one line I wrote that sounds just right. And if I can’t do anything right then, or for months, or even years, I’m trying to be gentle with my only-human self about it. The love, the ability, and the same old joy are all still there. When I can steal a few precious moments for myself, even if it’s been a while, I know where to find them – they will be waiting for me. 

 

 

The T-Shirt Drawer

The T-Shirt Drawer

by | May 13, 2023 | Perspectives, Writings

During the Kon Mari tidying craze, I went through the shirts in my T-shirt drawer and got rid of the ones I never wore, or didn’t like, or that didn’t “spark joy.” I re-folded and arranged the survivors of the great purge, so they were standing in the drawer in neat columns. I’ve actually kept them this way.

Let me assure you that these rows of vertically-filed shirts that I decided to keep are not the cute athleisure ones with matching leggings and workout-to-brunch opportunities; they are mostly cotton, screen-printed, well-worn, kind of holey T-shirts. I wear them around the house, to sleep in, and when I decide don’t care who may see me looking like a college student with forehead wrinkles in Target.

My family and I are about to move, and it’s time to clean out closets and shelves before we pack. I’ve tried to re-evaluate what’s in that drawer. There are a lot of T-shirts in that drawer that could (should?) be donated, recycled, or thrown out, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I have purged kids’ clothes and toys, kitchen items, and even other items of my own clothing, but I keep feeling emotionally attached to the entire drawer of T-shirts.

Some of them include:

Shirts from my undergraduate alma mater. The first T-shirt I ever bought on campus, for homecoming. Then there’s the one I bought when we went to a big bowl game, and the one I bought when I went back to teach there and needed something a little “nicer looking.”

One T-shirt from my Master’s alma mater. I have only one from those years, because I spent most of it abroad, where women don’t really wear these types of T-shirts. It represents the most transformative period of my life.

The Spanish National Team soccer jersey from 2008. It was the year they won the Eurocup and the year I left Spain to move back to the U.S.

A few T-shirts from the university where I spent five years getting my Ph.D. When I bought my first T-shirt after starting classes there, I remember being so proud to own it. How many hours did I spend reading, studying, and writing in those? Too many to count.

My husband’s college T-shirt. It’s been worn so soft and thin that it would probably tear down the side if you pulled it too hard. It has a hole near the bottom where he used to open beer bottles with it. Oh, college.

T-shirts from races. Some I ran while I was at the peak of my game, and some while I was trying to heal a broken heart.

A long-sleeved t-shirt from the place we honeymooned. A  slice of bliss before the real work of marriage.

Some shirts from each of the schools at which I’ve taught. There is at least one spirit shirt from each place, including one that I bought a few sizes up to accommodate my belly while pregnant with my second baby.

Shirts from my husband’s medical training institution. These were some of the most challenging years of our lives, and when we met some treasured friends.

The shirts, it turns out, are not just timeworn articles of clothing; they are artifacts of my adult life thus far. These garments have clothed me on long runs, while writing my dissertation, while teaching on spirit days, while breastfeeding babies, while packing and moving some twenty times, and in a million other moments both exceptional and ordinary. They are an opportunity to recall times and spaces long past, and pieces of myself that are still part of who I am today.

“Our things embody our sense of self-hood and identity still further, becoming external receptacles for our memories, relationships, and travels.”

— Christian Jarret

For thousands of years, possessions have been connected to personal identity, and scholars have been studying this phenomenon for over a century. If you’re into this kind of thing, see, for example, William James (1890), Eugene Rochberg-Halton (1984), Russell Belk (1988), and Cheryl Harris (1993). More recently, psychologist Christian Jarret produced a TED talk in 2016 called “Why are we so attached to our things?” in which he explores the connections we make between our possessions and our personal identity.

Basically, in spite of our best efforts not to assign deep meaning to material objects, our brains are wired otherwise. It begins in childhood, and as we grow into adulthood, “our things embody our sense of self-hood and identity still further, becoming external receptacles for our memories, relationships, and travels,” writes Jarret in “The Psychology of Stuff and Things” (2013). This is why we may see so much more than colorful fabrics when we open a closet or a dresser drawer; we see the patchwork of our lives and of ourselves.

Of course, people may not have such a strong attachment to clothing or possessions, depending on the million possible circumstances of their lives, the culture in which they live, the strength of their ego, and their assurance of their personal identity.  Jarrett explains: “How much we see our things as an extension of ourselves may depend in part on how confident we feel about who we are.” In my case, my life trajectory, values, and sense of self have been through so many iterations in the last twenty years that I do think the T-shirts in that drawer have greater meaning for me than if things had been more stagnant. These T-shirts are a literal record of my past, present, and future identities. Perhaps they are also a way to convey those identities to others, like a sports fan brandishing a jersey or a scarf to show their loyalty and right to belong.

Someday I’ll be dead and gone, and all my T-shirts and other possessions will eventually be gone, too. My existence will have been whittled down to a birth certificate, a death certificate, and the relationships I had with others. For right now, while I have to start detaching from one place to move to another, I’m letting these T-shirts and their other drawer-mates live out their twilight years to the fullest, holes and all. They remind me of who I am and where I’ve been. Who knows which ones may be added to the collection in years to come?

Yes, they are just T-shirts. But if you will excuse the pun, they are both holey and holy: holey, from clothing my body over many years of a lot of life; and holy, relics of the past, evidence of experiences and connections, vestments for a human body that lives and thinks and feels, and testaments of love given and received.

Dear Residency, from a Resident Wife

Dear Residency, from a Resident Wife

by | Jul 1, 2022 | Medical Family, Writings

Dear Four-Year, Anesthesiology Medical Residency,

Today, we say goodbye after four years together. The 1,460 days that my family and I have spent with you have been the hardest of our lives so far, in every possible way: professionally, physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. I often tell people that if I had known what I was signing up for, I likely wouldn’t have put my name down. But I did – the whole family did – and here we are.

Do you remember when we first met? I sure do.

In the three weeks before medical school graduation, I gave birth to our second child, a baby brother to our 19-month-old son. We packed our entire house to move with a newborn and a toddler. My husband and I took our newborn with us to clean out my classroom at my dream teaching job because our new location was too far for me to continue working there. Then our dog’s health rapidly declined after a lengthy illness, and we had to make the gut-wrenching decision to put him down. We had to let go of our elder son’s beloved nanny of a year and a half, our most reliable source of childcare and a precious influence and support during my early days of working motherhood. I got mastitis. We moved to a new house in a new town with our newborn and toddler and unpacked. Then came the graduation ceremony, after which we threw a giant party with family and friends. At three weeks postpartum, I was so sleep-deprived and physically exhausted during the party that I ended up sobbing in a back bedroom while I changed the baby. It was three weeks of whiplash for our hearts, minds, and bodies, but we couldn’t dwell on it because two weeks later orientation started, and on its heels July 1, the Medical New Year.

For the four years that followed, Jeff regularly worked 12-16 hour days and 80+ hour weeks. Sometimes he worked for 13 days straight. Now and then we would get him home at 5 or 6, but many days it was well after 7 or 8, after starting work at 6 am. He did somewhere around 200, 24-hour shifts. Three times, he stayed behind on emergency teams while I evacuated with the kids. For two months he lived away from us while he did rotations in Houston.

 

“I have no idea when this case will finish.”

“There is 0% chance I’m making it home for dinner/bedtime/Tball/etc.”

“Call to say goodnight?”

“I have to go back in.”

“Miss y’all.”

 

“Is Daddy home?”

“Is he asleep or awake?”

“Is Daddy coming home tonight?”

“Is Daddy still at work?”

And through sobs: “I miss Daddy.”

 

You were a roller coaster of pride and anxiety, elation and misery, joy and despair, punctuated by particular moments that I won’t soon forget:

Watching Jeff preop at the table or on our bed or in our closet. At first, it would take him hours (after working the usual 12-14 hour shift), but by the end, he could do it in 5 minutes.

The handful of times he came home and said he had to throw his shoes away because they got doused in blood or some other bodily fluids.

When he shaved his beloved beard to get fitted for his N-95 at the beginning of the pandemic.

Finding him asleep in the middle of the living room floor while trying to play with the kids after a 14-hour day, or after an overnight call.

The times he stripped his scrubs off in the garage and went straight to the shower because he had been in the OR for hours with Covid+ patients.

When I asked why he hadn’t left yet because I knew he wasn’t on call, and his response was a photo of a blood-soaked OR floor. He had stayed late to try to help save a mother that hemorrhaged over, and over, and over. (She made it.)

The first time he had to pronounce someone dead.

When he walked in the back door from working a 24-hour shift, having just learned his father had died.

The countless concerned glances Jeff and I gave one another from across the room, fearful that any scratchy throat or sniffly nose meant either he or we would become seriously ill or die. During the pandemic, Jeff took on immense personal risk of infection at work while the children and I accepted risk at home. We anxiously awaited life-saving vaccines to be approved, and I’ll never forget the relief I felt when he was finally able to be vaccinated, then me, then our children. We were likely to survive. Some medical residents and their families were not so fortunate.

 

You pushed him to the limit. He worked so hard, and he sacrificed so much.

And then, when he was home, he husband-ed and parented. He made dinner plates, cleaned the kitchen, packed lunches, bathed babies, and did bedtime. He brought donuts home after 24-hour call shifts so we could do something special together before he went to bed. He made time to go on date nights and to spend time with me. Sometimes he wouldn’t sleep that much after 24-hour calls so he could get up and spend time with us. On days off, many times he studied, read, made schedules, or even got called back in. He quietly got glowing reviews from colleagues and attendings, awards, and Chief. When I think of how proud I am of him, it feels as if my heart might burst.

Although I did not go through medical training at the hospital, I sure as hell went through it at home, with my own interminable hours and a workload no one human should have to shoulder. We had two kids under two, and then three kids three and under (and if you are wondering why in God’s name, it’s because we got married at 29 and put off starting a family while we both finished advanced degrees, not that we owe anyone an explanation.) I shouldered the weight of the household and babies so Jeff could make the most out of these four intense training years.

While Jeff trained, I solo-parented through stomach viruses, hand foot and mouth, colds, severe postpartum depression, holidays, entire holiday weekends, entire months when Jeff was on an away rotations, over 200 24-hour overnight calls, each followed by another 7-8 hours while Jeff slept in the closet after getting home (yes, we kept a twin mattress in our closet), pregnancy nausea and vomiting that lasted 38 weeks, and Jeff’s days off when he had to study or read for whatever exam was next because there is ALWAYS another exam. It was my job to maintain the routine, keep everyone entertained, manage the household, hold myself together, and try not to miss out on too much. I am equally proud of my fortitude during these years.

Many angels helped me along the way, including my parents, my mother-in-law, my cousin Lily, our saint of a babysitter Leighanne, my therapist, and friends who delivered meals, ginger ale, and wine right when you needed them. I am forever indebted to them for their support.

While you gave Jeff part of his medical education, I got an education of a different sort. I learned to ask for help and to accept it. I discovered how to create and express boundaries. Postpartum depression introduced me to the wonders of psychiatric medication and therapy, which both saved and changed my life. I re-discovered who I am after giving up a career I had so intertwined with my identity. I became skilled at zeroing in on exactly how I wanted to spend precious minutes of free and family time. I learned to manage being deeply resentful, immensely grateful, and cautiously hopeful, often at the same time. I got involved in our resident-spouse organization, Resiterns. As I supported other resident families by planning social events and connecting them with resources, I became a capable event planner, non-profit budgeter, leader of the board, fundraiser, networker, and more. Later, I went back to work teaching and tutoring part-time. I have always been independent, but I gained confidence in myself that I never thought possible. By the end of residency, I had found myself, maybe for the first time.

You gifted me sweet moments with just me and the kids, and nights alone to watch whatever I wanted on TV and take up the whole bed. You gave me a chance invest in myself and to start writing again. You offered opportunities to find simplicity and ease in pretty much anything. So many times, you stopped me in my tracks with beautiful, sacred moments that reminded me of how lucky I am.

And you gave me friends – the kind of friends that hold you together, that love you exactly as you are and where you are, and that show you the kind of human you want to be: Amy, Gaby, Leigh, Maria, Lauren, Marcela, Jessica, Holly, Evelyn, Stephanie, Tayra, Jarica, Judith, Erin, Nikki, Amanda, Jen, Maggie, Abril, Germaine, Vicki, Morgan, Sean, Nikita, Sommer and Craig, Shreya, Kelly. Probably the only reason I would go through this all over again would be for the friends.

We aren’t entirely done with medical training yet – there are boards to take and one more year of Chronic Pain fellowship – and to an extent, medicine has become just another thread in the tapestry of our lives. When Jeff holds my hand, he can’t help but slip his fingers over my wrist to feel my pulse. And when I am little spoon, his fingers dance down my spine feeling for epidural spaces and processes. Medicine is always with us.

But our particular chapter together has indeed come to a close. We leave with meager bank accounts and clearer values; crushing debt and hope for the future; extra grey hairs, wrinkles, and pounds, and gratitude for the miracle of being alive; a marriage that held on for dear life and came out the other side stronger; our three beautiful children, who have only known a life with medical school and residency and who are so excited to have our family unit together more often; and a treasure trove of friendships and memories that I will cherish always.

Goodbye, residency. Thank you for making my husband into the physician and man he is today. We are both leaving you as better people.

With gratitude,

Sarah

 

 

 

 

Sprinkles

Sprinkles

by | May 10, 2022 | Motherhood, Writings

Shit. I don’t have any rainbow sprinkles.
 
My child’s teacher had graciously texted me earlier in the day – “Are you doing anything for his birthday in class tomorrow? If not I will probably do something for him!” In all the planning for his birthday party that Saturday, I had completely forgotten about bringing cupcakes to school. “Yes, I’ll bring cupcakes!” I would not have time to grab them from the store or bakery the next morning because of my schedule, so I had cake mix and frosting delivered to my door and made them after the kids went to bed. I went to frost and decorate them with some rainbow or otherwise birthday-ish sprinkles – but there were none in the pantry.
 
My choices were remnants of Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Summer, and Valentine’s day sprinkles in those canisters that give you like 5 different kinds of sprinkles in one container. I don’t love any of these, I thought. None of them could really pass as “birthday sprinkles.” Ok – but what if I mix some of them?
 
I pulled what I had and started dumping them into a bowl. Black and orange jimmies from Halloween, lime green, white and blue ones with some white stars from summer, red and green dots from Christmas, and pink, purple, and white dots from Valentine’s Day. It didn’t look bad, actually. This would do.
 
I sprinkled them on top of each chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting for my chocolate-loving boy, and felt satisfied with my very last-minute work. My child had birthday cupcakes and he would feel special. And all those little moments of buying special sprinkles, of stopping long enough to bake something, of enjoying a sprinkled cookie with the kids, had actually left me the perfect mixture with which to decorate these last-minute birthday cupcakes.
 
To all the parents trying their best – remember the sprinkles! It’s not the big-bang moments of parenting success that matter. It’s all the little moments throughout the year that will add up to just enough.

 

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