Life in the passed lane

Another round of med school friends are getting ready to match and graduate. Another round of M2s (second years, for those of you not in the know) just got their M3 schedules. Happily topping it off, another pair of friends got married last weekend! Between graduating from medical school and starting residency, getting married, and having babies, I would say that some incalculably huge fraction of my friends have experienced a life-changing event over the past year and a half. When I hold these up against my life, it’s hard not to feel a bit like I’m falling behind somehow. I don’t have a job, at least not really, and no, I’m not a doctor yet. I’m not married in the legal sense (though I don’t really want to be, the subject of a hypothetical future post), and it just seems imprudent to have babies when my health insurance depends on my ability to write grant and fellowship applications. When I hold up my biggest achievements (passing prelims and defending my prospectus), they seem awfully removed from the things that most people understand.

Despite this, and I apologize for the down-turn of this post into morose and whiny, which is not where I intended it to go when I sat down to write, I still don’t regret choosing to do the combined degree program. As I’ve been meeting prospective students for my doctoral program I’ve been explaining (for the 1,000,000th time) what my program entails, and lately, I’ve been feeling pretty good. It’s exciting (even as it’s terrifying) to state aloud that I’m planning to defend my thesis in about a year. It’s terrifying (even as it’s exciting) to talk about going back to medical school for the best of times and the worst of times: third year and clinical rotations. The best part of feeling like the end is near: I can really enjoy other people moving on, knowing that really, truly, someday… I will too.

Which is what this post was initially supposed to be about: Dorothy and Justin’s wedding! It was so exciting!!! I’ve known Dorothy and Justin since M1 year, though they weren’t dating then (!), and it was wonderful to see them get married on Sunday. The ceremony was beautiful, and the reception was at a stunning venue, the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. I must say that my favorite part of the whole thing, apart from seeing the two of them blissfully happy throughout, was the photo booth. That’s right, you read correctly, the photo booth. Each set of photos was printed twice so that one copy could go into the guest book. It was brilliant, and in addition to photos Alicia and I took together, we joined several large group photos, fitting at least 14 people into the booth at once for an amazing group photo experience.

To Dorothy and Justin: Congratulations, and thanks for a wonderful day!