Sometimes, I feel like I am training myself out of what I want to be. There is this vague idea in the back of my head of a ‘dream,’ and so forth, but reality then hits, and it hits hard: what if the dream, when realized, becomes a nightmare?
A doctor or a writer. These have been my converging dreams ever since I can remember. Since my sister was diagnosed with cancer at the age of two, since I was diagnosed with a rare disease at the same age—I have been fascinated with the power of physicians. The secret knowledge they seemed to possess, the magical powers of healing. I envied them their minds, their ability to be called upon in emergencies and know how to act.
A quote by the author of A House on Mango Street details the young child’s awe at her friend’s face being stitched back together after being split open, and notes that ‘this is what one person can do for another.’ This idea still intrigues me, interests me to no end.
Yet, here I am. Two courses away from being able to attend medical school! Yet, despite the allure of the career—constant learning, a tangible skill set desperately in need, fulfilling that ever-so-apparent potential: I am not sure if it the life I want. The career yes, the perfect job. The life…
Perhaps I remain too much of a romantic. I still want to travel the world. Cook in Paris, and drink wine in Italy. Live in London perhaps, drift down the Nile once again. The taste for adventure has not left me, the desire for newness and excitement and dancing! A career in medicine will not give me this. I am desperately afraid that whatever in me yearns for art and magic and a life filled with surprises will be squelched by a job that requires everything.
I am torn between the lives—perfect job, perfect family-life, or perfect life? Medicine will give me one, marriage will give me another, but maybe it will always be writing that gives me the third. Which to choose?
