Maple Poached Figs and Granola Parfait

March 31, 2017August 16, 2024

Apologies I haven’t posted in a while. It’s been a tough past few weeks. I am taking a blogging break the next two weeks to study for my US medical licensing exam.

Longtime blog readers will know that B and I have been long distance for >5 years now. This past year B had applied to transfer his residency to Yale (even redoing his intern year). After his application, we had been eagerly waiting for results, eager to finally live together. We had gotten great feedback from the program’s residents and were very hopeful he would be accepted.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.

We had a new apartment and a puppy lined up – those, along with our dreams of finally living married life together – vanished instantly.

And while life goes on, and not much would differ from the status quo (life was the same as the day before the news – us living in separate states), it hard hard to contain my disappointment.

Additionally, I had lost my apartment lease since I had to wait til Match to know whether to renew my current studio. Despite me having 3 months left my lease, and imploring the management to wait just 2 weeks for the Match results to see if I needed to stay, they rented my apartment out the very next day. Suddenly homeless for the next year, I had to scramble for housing.

Without B and I living together next year, I couldn’t care for a dog, let alone a puppy on my own. Sadly, I had to tell the breeder that given the circumstances, we were no longer able to get a dog anymore. Giving up getting a dog was the most painful part, but a single second year resident schedule with frequent 28 hour calls is not conducive for a happy dog.

Finally, I’m culminating these lovely few weeks with taking Part 3 of my United States Medical Licensing Examination – two 8 hour tests. Studying has been difficult, needless to say.

B accepted everything well, but I did not because, as he pointed out, I was not used to having things not go as planned. It was true. I had been so ready to live together. I went through the stages of grief in perfect order – denial, anger, bargaining, depression.

I still wait impatiently for the last stage – acceptance.

I’m not a fan of the Match system because it give no control to doctors (who of course are the most type A planners ever). Given our schedules, B and I will continue to finish our residencies apart.

After two weeks, I finally found new housing, have accepted not having a dog/moving to a new apartment/continuing long distance with B, and I’m not longer doing 14 hr overnight shifts in the cardiac ICU, so life is slightly better. My fellow Yale residents / mentors and B have been wonderfully supportive and all around awesome.

This detour in our plans was a bitter pill to swallow, but it made for a big paradigm shift – rethinking how the role of family/personal life would fit in the future with the role of doctor. For now, our residencies determine our lives, but I look forward to the day where B and I have more control of life decisions, and one day when we can live together.