Kinda Carpe Diem

It is getting harder and harder to find time to write in fellowship. In between reading thick textbooks and making reports and presentations, I barely have time for a good night's sleep or watching all the movies I've downloaded over the past year. And once my daughter comes into our room and runs into my arms, all the time for NBA 2K14 and TV, happily goes out the window.

It is a tough, tough schedule to keep.

In memory of Robin Williams, I watched Dead Poets Society for umpteenth time again and wondered if I, having taken this road that I am on, am indeed seizing the day and the Carpe diem-ness of this life. Or maybe I have been handed a vertebrae while others have been given femurs to suck the marrow out of.

I look at facebook and my timeline is filled with friends' amazing lives. Well, and a few not so amazing ones but I guess, significant in their own right. I see pictures of trips to wherever, beautiful sunsets at the beach, breathtaking selfies in the Parises of the world, newfangled gadgets and wheels and sometimes, I find myself asking if spending time to write a little entry to a just-remembered blog in the cardiology specialty office of this hospital I exist in every three days, why am I not out there taking these pictures? Why am I not basking in the sun somewhere with not a care in the world?

It's not envy, I assure you. I love looking at all my these moments in my friends' lives. It's more of questioning myself from time to time. I have never been much of a traveler nor have I show much wanderlust but I'd love to go to new places eventually. I have no taste for activities that could be a scene in a Final Destination movie like going skydiving and your parachute suddenly doesn't open, or as simple as riding a zipline that breaks. I'd love to spend my spare time hitting the links if I were any good at it or ride my brand new pickup truck, if I had one.

Hmmm.

Maybe I'm not too left out, after all.

During the course of writing this short entry, I've realized that maybe I'm where I want to be. I'm where I'm meant to be. Sure, this may not be the stuff of Facebook legend and may not be picturesque enough to put up on a post, but this is just a good life as any.

I'm in a death-defying job. Every. Single. Day.

There is excitement in what I do, a lot of puzzles and mysteries to solve. I get to places where only a few could only imagine and set my eyes on sights not seen anywhere else -- the beauty of the valve leaflets, the beating heart, the reopened coronary arteries saving a patient's life -- and for others who have chosen this same path, the birth of human being, the gyri and sulci of the human brain, and so much more.

Though blame can be a part of the job, there are a lot of thank yous to be had at the end of the day too.

I've done a couple of stuff in my spare time that's worth a post or two, but there's little time left before I have to leave to do rounds on my patients again.

There will come a time when I'll be through with fellowship and go on to have my own practice and my own patients. I doubt if time will allow me a better schedule but I'm sure I'll be fine with catching a few quality moments with friends and family on a beach somewhere and getting back to the grind of this so-called life I call medicine just because I know it's where I'm meant to be.