I have been feeling, on and off, a sense of wanderlust for a while now. I deeply regret not studying abroad. And I enjoy going to school, but it has been a constant in my life for nearly 17 years now, and I think it might be time to shake it up a little.
At one point, Ross and I thought about doing service with the Mennonite church once I graduated, but we were told that the service organizations didn't take couples in their first year of marriage. Turns out they just changed that rule this fall.
So service with MVS is now definitely the backup plan if I don't get into med school this year. However, I keep thinking that a year of service maybe ought to be The Plan after all. I could defer enrollment to medical school, and I think it would be refreshing to devote some time to helping others rather than working toward my own career goals. And Ross and I agree that MVS could be good for us--spending our first year of marriage in simple, communal living would give us a foundation for the rest of our lives together.
On the other hand, it is hard for me to change my plans, and I have always planned to go straight on to medical school. I think Ross is also somewhat anxious to start grad school. Medical training is long and intense, and Ross and I struggle with if and how and when it will be possible for us to have children in the next 10 years or so. Delaying the beginning of medical school may also mean further delaying having kids, which is not really what we want to do.
I don't know what to think about this possibility. This is a time of enormous uncertainty for me. I wonder if this attraction to MVS is born out of a desire to be in control of my life when I feel like my fate is in the hands of admissions committees. I wonder if it is a calling, if it might lead me down a path I need to take. I wonder if it is the right choice for Ross, or a calling for him.
3 comments:
Your self-analysis is probably close to target, but you're certainly the service type and I think it'd be a good path for both you and Ross.
I believe everyone should be forced to do service before they 'have a real job'. Sure, after you're in that place for a few months, you'll think to yourself what you're doing there, but that's natural (it happened to me). Service is great.
My verification word is "cheed".
If one of your primary reasons for not doing service before med school is "it's hard for me to change plans," I think probably it's time to jostle yourself out of that mindset. Also, delaying babies for another year makes it that much more likely that our babies will be best friends! These are the things to think about.
Med school and babies will (hopefully) wait. But once you have babies and a life, it will be a lot harder to justify this kind of uprooting. I don't want to hear all the time for the rest of my life that you are full of regrets and stuff.
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