About a month after we moved when I was still refusing to be anything but sullen and pessimistic about our new home, J forced me to listen to the hard truth I needed to hear: "You need to find a way to make this work otherwise it's going to be a very long residency." He was right, of course, and that was a turning point in my approach toward this new journey of ours. What I didn't realize at the time but which I have progressively learned throughout the last four and a half years is that the same could be said for being a surgical resident's spouse. In many ways, surthriving New York has been as much about learning how to navigate the country's largest metropolis as about navigating marriage to a surgical resident. Residency is never easy, but as numerous forums, articles, and studies will tell you, a general surgery residency is particularly brutal. Ours is a six-year slog replete with higher-ups who insist on promulgating the torturous hours and expectations of their own rise through the ranks, despite the ACGME's efforts to put limits on the egregious overworking of its already starved residents. From my perspective as a resident's wife, empathy is in short supply among surgical attendings. J has no choice but to suffer through it, and so I suffer with him.
His intern year (year one of residency) was as horrible as we expected it to be. Additionally, we had the deck stacked against us: we had just moved from the Midwest to Brooklyn leaving our family and friends behind; I didn't have a job right away; and neither of us had much by way of social connections in our new home. Yet knowing it would be rough did nothing to prepare me for the loneliness, the emotional burdens of supporting my partner without having any idea how to care for myself, my unrequited desires for intimacy, or the consistently unpredictable hours. Much of the challenge was in waiting - for him to be home, for him to be available, for him to be able - and I spent too much of that first year feeling disappointed when, time after time, things didn't go as I'd planned. The thing about all of this is that J never had any choice in the matter. He wasn't intentionally coming home late and in truth he was suffering far more than me with his unrelenting hours without food, rest, or positive reinforcement. I knew I couldn't be upset with him for a circumstance of which he had no control, so I went with it. I said "okay" a lot. And after telling him, and myself, that I was "okay" time and again, I started to believe it. A late night at work? Okay. Weeks of studying for a test? Okay. A missed chance at going out because of fatigue? Okay. After so many "okays" I stopped feeling the sting of missed opportunities and accepted it as a reality not to rail against but to live with. It is an art, to be okay all the time. It takes grace, patience, sympathy, independence, and no small amount of fortitude. I have by no means mastered the art, but I've had numerous opportunities to practice and get better at it. At the same time, I have gotten stronger, and found that I am legitimately okay with more and more. I've adjusted my expectations, found joy in other places, made my own happiness when I couldn't depend on someone else to do it for me. And even when things are tough, I've found that falling back on my okay-ness is, at the very least, better than railing against the insurmountable. There's a new part of the journey looming on the horizon. Fellowship is in a year and a half and with it will come a whole new set of challenges. It won't be easy. Even thinking about it isn't easy. But it will be okay.
2 Comments
Dad
2/5/2018 08:49:04 am
Cathartic, I'm sure it must be, to be able to express your feelings so poignantly. Wish I had your writing skill. You will be ok, my Dear, for you are strong. And you are loved.
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Shlomo
2/6/2018 05:26:05 pm
Nashira, Thank you so much!
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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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