I am approaching mid-life, but I am not in crisis

So much can be said about 2020 and 2021. In every aspect of my life and in every aspect of the world, we can collectively use words like change, inequity, upheaval, conflict, fear, resilience, clarity to describe it all.

In 2019, my beloved maternal grandmother died and I went to Barbados for the funeral. I boarded the plane directly after a busy day on call at the hospital. When I returned, it was to head straight from the airport back to being on call. While I was in Barbados, I sat around with family I hadn't seen in many years. We laughed and hugged and fellowshipped as if a long time hadn't passed since we'd last seen eachother. I remember watching the calm simplicity of life that my aunt and uncle lived, not without responsibilities or stressors, but without fanfare and superficial, superfluous external pressures. I remember thinking that it was not only possible to live a simple life, one with more balance, but that it was absolutely necessary.

I have spent my entire life studying. As a physician, your entire 20s is sacrificed to the pursuit of scientific knowledge. As an immigrant with no generational wealth to carry me through, I definitely experienced stresses and worries that many of my classmates didn't have to, and I was unable to afford certain luxury outlets (vacations etc) that brought balance to the lives of many of my counterparts. I UN regrettably chose to have two children during residency training, so exciting vacations during the grueling training simply did not happen. Thank goodness I was able to island hop a bit during the 16 months I was in Dominica at the beginning of medical school.

After training, I entered the busy workforce. I, like most doctors, was at the whim of employers who want to get as much labor out of you, with little care for your quality of life, insurance companies who want to keep as much of the premiums paid in for their profits so they constantly decrease their reimbursements, hospital administrators who make decisions on how medicine is practiced without consulting those who studied it. I, like most doctors, was pressured to tolerate abusive or racist patients, since them staying in the practice was obviously more important to the practice than the happiness of their physicians. Add to that very long hours, heavy patient load, litigiousness gone crazy and anti science, being a physician in the United States has become increasingly a drain on one's life.

I, like most doctors, have accepted certain realities, not stopping to think that it doesn't have to be that way. If you have been following my blog you already know all of the reasons why I decided to leave the US. The same story can be said for my decision to leave the status quo of my marginalized existence as a Black woman in America, a provider of women's health, etc.

When I came across this quote by Brene Brown, whose books I have read, I thought about the fact that often an upheaval at a time when it seems like the easiest thing to do would be to stay steady, is not always a sign of chaos or confusion, but is a result of deep clarity, discernment and determination.

Tomorrow, on the 7th, I will be 40yrs old. While I am definitely in the midst of much change, I am truly at peace. I do not feel like I am in crisis. In fact, I feel that I have left the crisis of accepting the intolerable.

I am fortunate that my siblings and I were able to grow up feeling valued and special. The older I get, the more and more I have become connected to what it truly means to know the value of your life and to do all that you can to make a life worthy of that value.

One would say that there is a lot of privilege in what I have done, but none of this was possible without the down payment of discipline, effort, sacrifice and wise decision making during the first 40 years of my life, as well as the blessings of God.

So, I am entering "mid-life", but I am by no means in a mid-life crisis

Happy Birthday to Me