I've often thought that I should share my experiences with the world, but I've held back for fear of not having an audience. But then there are the occasional afternoons or lonely evenings spent on Google searches and blog posts, reading the experiences of others in similar situations, and they bring me hope, comfort, or sometimes a healthy dose of head-nodding, finding camaraderie and companionship in these strangers' words. Because let's face it: being a resident's wife is really hard. And being a surgical resident's wife is hard. And being a small-town girl thrown into a big city is hard. And not having family around is hard. And living in New York is just plain hard. But the crazy thing about this whole process has been that somehow I'm not just surviving it, but I'm actually doing quite well for myself. My marriage is healthy, my job is wonderful, I have a supportive community, and I've found happiness in my little corner of Brooklyn. It may not be the kind of happiness that makes me want to stay forever, but I'm doing so much better than I realized I was capable of.
So, with the New Year as an excuse to stop dreaming and start doing, I'd like to write more and share my story with anyone who wants or needs to listen. To the young couple just starting residency, or to my friends and family who are curious about the inner machinations of this process, I will write. My goal, my resolution if you will, is to keep writing so that, at Residency's end in 19.5 of my husband's hospital rotations (equal to about a year and a half), I will have a complete and coherent story, documented for whatever it might be worth. There are so many places to start this story and this post is only one of a handful of beginnings, because this narrative is really a combination of at least three different stories. There is the story about the resident's wife (we'll get to that) and the story about Jewish identity (we'll get to that, too), but we'll start today with the story of the small-town girl who was wholly unprepared for what life had in store. The funny thing is, I never actually thought of myself as a "small-town girl." First of all, I will always contend that my hometown is really a small city...by Wisconsin standards, anyway. I knew towns far smaller than the one where I grew up, and it's not exactly as if I grew up with cows in my backyard. I also felt like I had an outlook that was too broad for a "small-town girl." I had traveled a little, lived on my own in another country, and I went to college in the biggest city in Wisconsin. That had to count for something, right? I was, in my own little head with my own extremely limited experiences, worldly. Nothing made me feel more worldly than spending a semester in Israel, living, working, and studying on a kibbutz. It was a singularly spectacular experience with new foods, cultures, languages, and more hitchhiking than my mother is comfortable knowing about. (Never mind that the trip was completely organized with room, board, and a complete schedule to keep me busy, and that I was surrounded by a safety net.) Still, toward the end of my time there I bemoaned returning home to Wisconsin. It felt so bland by comparison, I wasn’t sure how I would handle it. What would I do, I wondered, when I wasn’t surrounded by at least four languages at all times? Then New York happened. I wonder at times if it would have been possible to be any less prepared. I had never been to New York before, could not have known that what I would encounter would be so vastly different from the New York City I saw in movies and television, and I wasn’t terribly excited by that version to begin with. I knew there were throngs of people but I didn’t know what it would feel like to press my way through them on the way to the subway. I knew there was garbage but didn’t know what the tall piles of naked trash bags on the sidewalk would smell like on a warm summer’s evening before the sanitation trucks could take it all away in the morning. I knew there would be noise, but I didn’t know what it would sound like from my first-floor bedroom window when two strangers hurled curse-laden insults at each other with half a block between them. The only thing I knew without a doubt was that I was moving somewhere I was unprepared to live, and that may very well have been equally unprepared to welcome me. I suppose I also knew, unequivocally, the motivation behind my move. I had a new shiny ring on my finger, a new relationship status on Facebook, a fiance. As if getting engaged wasn’t a big enough commitment, I was determined to be the most supportive not-quite-yet-wife I could be to a man entering his surgical residency. While I was trying to figure out how I would survive in Brooklyn, he was busy wondering whether or not he would survive residency - a grueling experience for even the most dedicated and determined. Our twin tasks were separate but equal in the trepidation they fostered, and we held our breaths as we held each other tight, trying desperately to comfort one another despite our own persistent fears. What we encountered - and what we have been making into a life - was both everything we anticipated and nothing like it. We struggle, yes, but we persist and continue to find beauty where we can. We believe wholeheartedly in the challenge we face, and know that no matter what, at least we were facing it together.
1 Comment
Amy
1/2/2018 01:04:17 am
Nice. I’m glad you’re blogging again. This audience member has enjoyed each blog you’ve written to date. Looking forward to more
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AuthorNashira is a music teacher and proud Small-Town Jew who, after surthriving six years in Brooklyn for her husband's surgical residency, is finally back in Wisconsin where she belongs! At least until the end of the two-year surgical fellowship, that is. It's a wild ride, and she's ready to tell you all about it! Archives
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