Freshman Wisdom, 16 Years Later...

April. A week into April, actually. Time certainly does fly.

I have been having a reoccurring dream for the past few months that it is Christmas again and my husband is asking why I haven’t decorated yet and I keep telling him it is because I JUST put them away and how did I have the whole year go by and not realize it. I always wake up very relieved that it isn’t true, but in so many ways, it isn’t that far from the truth.

I distinctly remember sitting in my living room my freshman year of high school with my friend Holly and talking about how quickly the first year went by and how we would graduate before we knew it since it was really just a couple volleyball seasons, a driver's license, homecomings, Christmases, proms and county fairs away.

I was a 4-H/FFA kid… years were marked by your fair animals.  1999 was Stanley, the steer.

We were so right about that.  What seemed like a week later, we were waving at each other from the distance at graduation, not as close of friends as we had been, but both knowing how quickly it all went by. 

Though nothing like the light speed of my twenties. Did that even happen?

Here we are now. Almost exactly halfway into my 32^nd year on earth and a 2/3rds and one week into DH’s first year of medical school.

There have been times when it has felt like it will never end. Mind, Brain, and Behavior block specifically come to mind (which I am somewhat certain is actually an experiment in sanity using the students as unknowing subjects).  It gets frustrating to know his whole weekend will be shot cause a podcast didn’t get uploaded in a timely manner or never getting much help around the house no matter how sick you are cause med school doesn’t care about your sick wife (which is kinda funny).

I am an extrovert and my work often leaves me alone and then I will come home to an empty house and I will go a whole day or more without talking to a human (thankfully my dogs are very talkative). Though I live in my hometown still, but we are all married, working and some with kids, so I spend a lot of time alone, which drains me.

There are many parts of this journey that can wear you down, your your body out, and your patience thin.

However, I still find myself this spring, much like I did back in the spring of 1999 with Holly, thinking how quickly this has all gone by so far, and how, really, graduation is just a few Christmases, a Step 1, a couple of away rotations and, God willing, a few kids away.

Before we know it, we will be deciding where we want him to rotate, apply to residency, how to rank, and most of all wondering where the time went, so we try not to wish it away, as difficult as that can be. 

Enjoy the time you have and these years that you will never get back!