Salaam,
Me apaixonei?
Talvez, pode ser
Enloqueci?
Não sei, nunca vi
Preciso sair
Depois que eu descobri
Que há você
Nunca mais existi
I fell in love?
Maybe, it could be
I went crazy?
I don't know, I've never been there
I need to get out
After I discovered
That there is you
I never existed again.
I told the story of this song before. How I heard this song on my "Haiti" playlist on Pandora in 2008, how I excitedly ordered a CD imported from Brasil with the song on it since I couldn't download it on the internet, how I read the insert in the CD to find a translation of the song, and how I realized that the song put into words what I could not.
I fell in love with a man and then I never existed again.
Alas, the very thing I prayed to God wouldn't happened had happened. I fell in love with a man who would not be mine. Why? Why would God allow it?
Over 11 years later, I still don't know. But this song reminds me of that place.
No song that exists on earth speaks to me more than this one. No artist has more quickly become my favorite than Djavan for the fact that he wrote this song. Talk about killing me softly.
There was a time where I couldn't complete a task without thinking about how this man would be proud of me, as he said he was. Proud of how smart I was, amazed at how smart I was. "I amazed him," he told me once. I had never been admired so brightly and so earnestly by a man. It had to be love.
I was so convinced and he was so emblazoned into my person for years that the best way that I could put it is that I wasn't myself anymore. The me that I was before had stopped existing. I became other. And I never existed again.
I was never the same. I have not existed again. He's since married the woman I knew he would end up with. Years after I was over him, his wife came to me in a dream, and described what he was like at their wedding.
I did not know until days later that I dreamed of her on the day they married. I would later see a Facebook post in which she described him exactly as she described him to me in my dream--serious in the face of his upcoming responsibility as a married man.
It's been 11 years since I first fell for him, and I've moved on. We are at two opposite sides of the country living separate and completely full lives, but I had to dream about him to congratulate him on his son. I hadn't dreamed of him in years, but I guess that was an occasion.
In every manifestation of his life, I can now see that he was meant for her, and she was meant for him. I don't know why I ever came into the picture and interrupted destiny. And I don't mean that to be self-deprecating, because the whole thing sure as hell interrupted my life.
The piece in the anthology only tells part of the story. I was too shy to write about the raw obsession and the pain of disillusionment when I found out he had no idea that I liked him, let alone that I stopped existing because of him.
The best that I can say did come out of the whole experience in the manuscript that I'm gearing up to edit.
I can't believe it's been 11 years. We were two different people then. Now, we're doctors. He has a family, and I'm at the precipice of marrying, at least I hope. When we met, we had no idea where we'd be, what we'd be able to do. We were just two nerdy kids in an organic chemistry class.
He didn't know a black girl could be so smart. I didn't know that the annoying, boisterous kid who I dreaded seeing in class every week would change my life.
The me before I met him never existed again. I wanted that someone who felt so important in my life to remain in my life, but only God knows.
Showing posts with label med school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label med school. Show all posts
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Black Achievement
As salaam alaikum,
I was reminded of this while watching a "Key and Peele" episode in which they compared black college movies with white college movies. White college movies were all about the party and college was a given. Black college movies were all about college as the destination, as if once insurmountable.
I have two cousins doing their studies in my hometown. One is in her first three weeks of graduate school, the other has started as an undergraduate. Both of them had small meltdowns on Facebook over the course of this week, threatening (though purely out of frustration) to drop out of their respective programs.
These are two highly motivated, very intelligent young women who earned their acceptance into their respective programs but who I feel did not have a realistic idea of what they were getting into upon matriculation.
Which is fine. I certainly did not know what I was getting into when I started medical school.
But I recognize something that one of my friends pointed out about black students. I recognize that she made sweeping generalizations and that there is no data, but I found her observations interesting. My friend was a tutor at one of the Harvard residence halls and had students of various ethnicities. She was supposed to be a resource, or at least a gateway to resources for the students. She noticed students of other races and ethnicities either had their own external resources for money and mentorship or they sought her out. Black students, who were the least likely to have outside money or mentors, also did not seek help. Another of my friends, also a tutor, acknowledged the same thing. The two of them believed that this was because, for the black students, college was the destination. They did not plan for the during or the after.
For a lot of black students, college is the destination. Education is the goal, not career.
Though few of these students would admit to matriculating into a school for the sake of college, few of them actually have the tools or insight to apply their education to their career aspiration. And few have the first idea of how to get those tools.
Facebook doesn't help. Facebook for both of my cousins became a place to boast their achievements and make sweeping statements about their broad aspirations, the audience being adoring family and friends who really do admire the ambition but have little to offer. Facebook also became the place of the meltdown, where those same people offer platitudes but no solid mentorship.
I'm not saying that this phenomenon is unique to black students. I'm sure a lot of college students of many backgrounds find themselves in the same place. I'm also not saying it's true of all black college students. But there are some things that ring true for me in my own educational and career trajectory, although, alhamdulillah, I've done well.
But college cannot be the destination. Sometimes, our families, as in black families, only know how to laud college. How's school and how's your grades? That's good, baby.
And that is good, but what are you studying? What classes are you taking for that? Have you been able to shadow or get an internship over the summer for that? How are you using your summers? Who are your mentors? If you don't have any, can you get some? Is there anyone whose career path you'd like to emulate? How does your resume look?
College is not the destination. Sometimes, your first career is not the destination. We should continue to congratulate high-achieving young people, but empty praise is not going to help them when school or training ultimately hits bumps or becomes frustrating.
The destination is not the 4.0. While grades and even grade point can be important depending on what career you are in, the goal is sustainable learning and application.
The destination is not the degree. It's not even the doors opened once you have the degree or the job you ultimately get with your qualifications.
The destination is not walking across the stage, loved ones looking on, pictures cross-posted on Facebook and Instagram, the degree on display in your home.
There are no destinations, just steps along a journey.
And as long as our students continue to set premature destinations and form their study habits, aspirations and life paradigms around these premature endpoints, then yes, there will be frustration, and yes, there will be wasted time, and yes, things will feel insurmountable that don't have to.
So I'm going to try to be there for my cousins and let them know that.
I was reminded of this while watching a "Key and Peele" episode in which they compared black college movies with white college movies. White college movies were all about the party and college was a given. Black college movies were all about college as the destination, as if once insurmountable.
I have two cousins doing their studies in my hometown. One is in her first three weeks of graduate school, the other has started as an undergraduate. Both of them had small meltdowns on Facebook over the course of this week, threatening (though purely out of frustration) to drop out of their respective programs.
These are two highly motivated, very intelligent young women who earned their acceptance into their respective programs but who I feel did not have a realistic idea of what they were getting into upon matriculation.
Which is fine. I certainly did not know what I was getting into when I started medical school.
But I recognize something that one of my friends pointed out about black students. I recognize that she made sweeping generalizations and that there is no data, but I found her observations interesting. My friend was a tutor at one of the Harvard residence halls and had students of various ethnicities. She was supposed to be a resource, or at least a gateway to resources for the students. She noticed students of other races and ethnicities either had their own external resources for money and mentorship or they sought her out. Black students, who were the least likely to have outside money or mentors, also did not seek help. Another of my friends, also a tutor, acknowledged the same thing. The two of them believed that this was because, for the black students, college was the destination. They did not plan for the during or the after.
For a lot of black students, college is the destination. Education is the goal, not career.
Though few of these students would admit to matriculating into a school for the sake of college, few of them actually have the tools or insight to apply their education to their career aspiration. And few have the first idea of how to get those tools.
Facebook doesn't help. Facebook for both of my cousins became a place to boast their achievements and make sweeping statements about their broad aspirations, the audience being adoring family and friends who really do admire the ambition but have little to offer. Facebook also became the place of the meltdown, where those same people offer platitudes but no solid mentorship.
I'm not saying that this phenomenon is unique to black students. I'm sure a lot of college students of many backgrounds find themselves in the same place. I'm also not saying it's true of all black college students. But there are some things that ring true for me in my own educational and career trajectory, although, alhamdulillah, I've done well.
But college cannot be the destination. Sometimes, our families, as in black families, only know how to laud college. How's school and how's your grades? That's good, baby.
And that is good, but what are you studying? What classes are you taking for that? Have you been able to shadow or get an internship over the summer for that? How are you using your summers? Who are your mentors? If you don't have any, can you get some? Is there anyone whose career path you'd like to emulate? How does your resume look?
College is not the destination. Sometimes, your first career is not the destination. We should continue to congratulate high-achieving young people, but empty praise is not going to help them when school or training ultimately hits bumps or becomes frustrating.
The destination is not the 4.0. While grades and even grade point can be important depending on what career you are in, the goal is sustainable learning and application.
The destination is not the degree. It's not even the doors opened once you have the degree or the job you ultimately get with your qualifications.
The destination is not walking across the stage, loved ones looking on, pictures cross-posted on Facebook and Instagram, the degree on display in your home.
There are no destinations, just steps along a journey.
And as long as our students continue to set premature destinations and form their study habits, aspirations and life paradigms around these premature endpoints, then yes, there will be frustration, and yes, there will be wasted time, and yes, things will feel insurmountable that don't have to.
So I'm going to try to be there for my cousins and let them know that.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
All I Want to Be
Salaam,
As another Ramadan approaches, I'm starting to become more reflective and introspective at a time that my incoming rotation will not allow me to be. I'll be on a surgery inpatient service for the duration of Ramadan. I just have to get in enough calories and hydrate enough during suhoor and before I begin my shifts at 5am, and I think I'll be fine, iA.
But also, as another Ramadan approaches, I reflect on all of the things I've wanted to be over the years, all of the things I want to be, and all of the things that I've tucked away, at least temporarily. One of them is a better Muslim. That definition has shifted over time and looks a bit different than it did 11 years ago when I fasted my first full Ramadan outside of my parent's home as an 18-year-old college freshman.
It looks different than it did when I was a new, 21-year-old hijabi.
It looks different than it did when I was a 24-year-old medical student, struggling with the fear that my first Muslim brother-crush, who was marrying someone else, was maybe the best, the last and the only chance I'd ever get at love.
It looks different than I did when I was 27, newly disillusioned with love and certain aspects of my religion and moving from east to west coast with hopes to realize my dream career.
I think that, more than any time in my life, my self-definition is fluid. That sounds wishy-washy. I mean that I realize that parts of who I am are continually evolving as I grow and learn. I do not expect to reach my destination and still have life left to live.
In essence, I will not attain "better Muslim" at once and then sit pretty for the rest of the time. It will be one of those life goals I will work toward until the end, whether that is the end of my life or the terminal decline of my cognition.
And while one could say that my Islam is all-encompassing of the most important things of my life, I also have other aspects of my life for which I recognize that I will not reach a destination before the end. These identities of mine are constantly growing and changing, and I thank God for that. It means I'm very much alive.
It also means I can't close my eyes and see where I want to be at any given time. I used to be able to close my eyes and see such vivid detail, from the color of my clothes to the height of my husband, to how many kids we'd have at our sides. With maturity these details have necessarily become more vague or are now nonexistent, replaced with an intangible placeholder named insha'Allah.
Because I couldn't have made up the last two years of my life when I was an 18-year-old freshman or a 21-year-old hijabi or a 24-year-old medical student.
And that removes the pressure I feel to be all that I want to be. I no longer feel pressure to be all of these things soon, as if it would never happen otherwise. I no longer feel pressure to be all of the things I want to be at once.
I no longer feel the urgency of being all the things I want to be. It's all insha'Allah, and for the first time in a couple of years, insha'Allah doesn't feel daunting to me.
I guess this is what it means to Submit.
There's so much that I am that I want to be as much of my life as I can, but I cannot, because of the earthly limits of space and time. I want to be all of these things, including a writer, an artist, a singer, a musician - a family physician, a public health practitioner, possibly a medical director - a mother, a wife, a daughter-in-law--while carrying with the things I already am--a Muslim, a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a friend, the list probably goes on. I want to be all of these things at once because I enjoy each of them, in each of them I find meaning and purpose, in each of them I express a little of myself, and to several of them I aspire absolutely.
And for the first time, I'm okay with the fact that there may be some things that I'll never be. I'm not despairing right now with the possibility of never bearing my own children, but maybe I'll adopt or foster. I may never publish a fiction piece, but I'll keep writing. I may never marry, but I'll love and nurture those who are in my life. Not saying that they would not be hard to come to terms with, but I'm accepting.
Whereas when I was a teen, when I saw the future, I saw black, bleak, dark--whereas when I was in my early 20s, I saw future as a series of detailed ideals with a backdrop of grave anxiety--I can't see the future now, as I never was able to, really, and I'm placing my trust in God, the best of planners, while moving forward prayerfully with my own purposeful plans in the meantime.
By God's grace, I will be able to be all I want to be.
As another Ramadan approaches, I'm starting to become more reflective and introspective at a time that my incoming rotation will not allow me to be. I'll be on a surgery inpatient service for the duration of Ramadan. I just have to get in enough calories and hydrate enough during suhoor and before I begin my shifts at 5am, and I think I'll be fine, iA.
But also, as another Ramadan approaches, I reflect on all of the things I've wanted to be over the years, all of the things I want to be, and all of the things that I've tucked away, at least temporarily. One of them is a better Muslim. That definition has shifted over time and looks a bit different than it did 11 years ago when I fasted my first full Ramadan outside of my parent's home as an 18-year-old college freshman.
It looks different than it did when I was a new, 21-year-old hijabi.
It looks different than it did when I was a 24-year-old medical student, struggling with the fear that my first Muslim brother-crush, who was marrying someone else, was maybe the best, the last and the only chance I'd ever get at love.
It looks different than I did when I was 27, newly disillusioned with love and certain aspects of my religion and moving from east to west coast with hopes to realize my dream career.
I think that, more than any time in my life, my self-definition is fluid. That sounds wishy-washy. I mean that I realize that parts of who I am are continually evolving as I grow and learn. I do not expect to reach my destination and still have life left to live.
In essence, I will not attain "better Muslim" at once and then sit pretty for the rest of the time. It will be one of those life goals I will work toward until the end, whether that is the end of my life or the terminal decline of my cognition.
And while one could say that my Islam is all-encompassing of the most important things of my life, I also have other aspects of my life for which I recognize that I will not reach a destination before the end. These identities of mine are constantly growing and changing, and I thank God for that. It means I'm very much alive.
It also means I can't close my eyes and see where I want to be at any given time. I used to be able to close my eyes and see such vivid detail, from the color of my clothes to the height of my husband, to how many kids we'd have at our sides. With maturity these details have necessarily become more vague or are now nonexistent, replaced with an intangible placeholder named insha'Allah.
Because I couldn't have made up the last two years of my life when I was an 18-year-old freshman or a 21-year-old hijabi or a 24-year-old medical student.
And that removes the pressure I feel to be all that I want to be. I no longer feel pressure to be all of these things soon, as if it would never happen otherwise. I no longer feel pressure to be all of the things I want to be at once.
I no longer feel the urgency of being all the things I want to be. It's all insha'Allah, and for the first time in a couple of years, insha'Allah doesn't feel daunting to me.
I guess this is what it means to Submit.
There's so much that I am that I want to be as much of my life as I can, but I cannot, because of the earthly limits of space and time. I want to be all of these things, including a writer, an artist, a singer, a musician - a family physician, a public health practitioner, possibly a medical director - a mother, a wife, a daughter-in-law--while carrying with the things I already am--a Muslim, a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a friend, the list probably goes on. I want to be all of these things at once because I enjoy each of them, in each of them I find meaning and purpose, in each of them I express a little of myself, and to several of them I aspire absolutely.
And for the first time, I'm okay with the fact that there may be some things that I'll never be. I'm not despairing right now with the possibility of never bearing my own children, but maybe I'll adopt or foster. I may never publish a fiction piece, but I'll keep writing. I may never marry, but I'll love and nurture those who are in my life. Not saying that they would not be hard to come to terms with, but I'm accepting.
Whereas when I was a teen, when I saw the future, I saw black, bleak, dark--whereas when I was in my early 20s, I saw future as a series of detailed ideals with a backdrop of grave anxiety--I can't see the future now, as I never was able to, really, and I'm placing my trust in God, the best of planners, while moving forward prayerfully with my own purposeful plans in the meantime.
By God's grace, I will be able to be all I want to be.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Finish Line
As salaam alaikum,
A year ago from Monday, I was sitting in front of my classmate and former roomie's apartment building, watching runners cross St. Paul Street on Beacon while sitting on her ottoman. She swiveled next to me in her office chair. We weren't running but at least I was dripping in sweat. At the heat of the day, it was 91 degrees, and after a few hours, the sun was just so the shadow of the building behind us receded and no longer sheltered us.
I looked at the white sitting on the median with their bare legs reflecting the sunlight and wondered if their skin hurt like mine did from the direct sun. It was April and already I was getting bronze. I broke out a spaghetti string blouse that now smelled like sweaty me and probably wasn't that cute.
But it was a great day! We got there early enough to see who would likely be the winners of the marathon, the finish line less than a mile away. We saw everyone who was in it for the run, probably people who'd run it every year. I shouted "Braseeoow!" every time I saw a runner from Brasil, hoping they'd hear me. And I cheered for several groups of runners as they made their way steadily, as I saw people slow to a walk, drink water.
But honestly, I don't remember it all. I remember it was a hot day and after a while we took the office chair and ottoman back into her apartment and went somewhere to eat. Five years living in Boston and I finally had a real day off to go to the marathon that several classmates ran every year.
Monday was my brother's birthday, tax day, Patriot's Day, Marathon Day. I had friends from Boston and not from Boston running the marathon. I planned to wake up from being post call to maybe glance at who won this year, as I did last year, and recall fondly that hot spring day foreshadowing a hot summer in the city that I lived in for five years.
Instead, I woke up to a text from my mother, asking me if I had heard about the marathon bombings.
It's different when you see such chaos at a familiar site.
It happened a block from where I used to get acupuncture, a place I've walked many a day and night and felt completely secure. The thing that got me about the image of the first explosion were the flags from all of the different countries that whipped in the wind after that with the backdrop of terrified screams. It made me cry the first time.
I would never, ever expect such a thing to happen during the marathon.
Fast forward these few days, lives changed, bodies mangled, the false accusations, the brown men framed, the hate crimes, the murdered MIT police officer outside of the window were a former classmate worked, the explosives out of the SUV, the city on lock down.
I don't know what to say.
And I really don't have anything more to say than what has already been said in other blogs. Scratch that. I have less to say.
I pray for everyone affected, and insha'Allah I'll pray some more. Not only my friends and virtual fam in residency in Boston, but for everyone. I came of age in Boston. I became a doctor in Boston. I had a lot of firsts in Boston and made family in Boston. I'm all the way on the other coast and had tucked it away as a past phase in my life but I find myself wanting to call it my city. It hurt my heart to see my city without the T running, with no one at Downtown Crossing, with no one in the financial district...
That terrorists are again Muslim feels to me like all the time criminals are again black. Condemn and distance is the way to go, I feel. These days I'm not feeling like too much of an apologist. All I can say is, the reality of these people, whatever crazy thing it is, is so distant from my reality, so distant from where I was last year on a hot spring's day, sun painfully bronzing my shoulders as the runners, swift, lean and agile, dripped sweat on Beacon as they ran to the finish line.
A year ago from Monday, I was sitting in front of my classmate and former roomie's apartment building, watching runners cross St. Paul Street on Beacon while sitting on her ottoman. She swiveled next to me in her office chair. We weren't running but at least I was dripping in sweat. At the heat of the day, it was 91 degrees, and after a few hours, the sun was just so the shadow of the building behind us receded and no longer sheltered us.
I looked at the white sitting on the median with their bare legs reflecting the sunlight and wondered if their skin hurt like mine did from the direct sun. It was April and already I was getting bronze. I broke out a spaghetti string blouse that now smelled like sweaty me and probably wasn't that cute.
But it was a great day! We got there early enough to see who would likely be the winners of the marathon, the finish line less than a mile away. We saw everyone who was in it for the run, probably people who'd run it every year. I shouted "Braseeoow!" every time I saw a runner from Brasil, hoping they'd hear me. And I cheered for several groups of runners as they made their way steadily, as I saw people slow to a walk, drink water.
But honestly, I don't remember it all. I remember it was a hot day and after a while we took the office chair and ottoman back into her apartment and went somewhere to eat. Five years living in Boston and I finally had a real day off to go to the marathon that several classmates ran every year.
Monday was my brother's birthday, tax day, Patriot's Day, Marathon Day. I had friends from Boston and not from Boston running the marathon. I planned to wake up from being post call to maybe glance at who won this year, as I did last year, and recall fondly that hot spring day foreshadowing a hot summer in the city that I lived in for five years.
Instead, I woke up to a text from my mother, asking me if I had heard about the marathon bombings.
It's different when you see such chaos at a familiar site.
It happened a block from where I used to get acupuncture, a place I've walked many a day and night and felt completely secure. The thing that got me about the image of the first explosion were the flags from all of the different countries that whipped in the wind after that with the backdrop of terrified screams. It made me cry the first time.
I would never, ever expect such a thing to happen during the marathon.
Fast forward these few days, lives changed, bodies mangled, the false accusations, the brown men framed, the hate crimes, the murdered MIT police officer outside of the window were a former classmate worked, the explosives out of the SUV, the city on lock down.
I don't know what to say.
And I really don't have anything more to say than what has already been said in other blogs. Scratch that. I have less to say.
I pray for everyone affected, and insha'Allah I'll pray some more. Not only my friends and virtual fam in residency in Boston, but for everyone. I came of age in Boston. I became a doctor in Boston. I had a lot of firsts in Boston and made family in Boston. I'm all the way on the other coast and had tucked it away as a past phase in my life but I find myself wanting to call it my city. It hurt my heart to see my city without the T running, with no one at Downtown Crossing, with no one in the financial district...
That terrorists are again Muslim feels to me like all the time criminals are again black. Condemn and distance is the way to go, I feel. These days I'm not feeling like too much of an apologist. All I can say is, the reality of these people, whatever crazy thing it is, is so distant from my reality, so distant from where I was last year on a hot spring's day, sun painfully bronzing my shoulders as the runners, swift, lean and agile, dripped sweat on Beacon as they ran to the finish line.
Monday, June 25, 2012
[uncensored]: Why am I Still Single?
As salaam alaikum,
Yesterday, as I was walking with my co-residents to Pride with my rainbow-colored scarf that I never wore as a khimar at the time it was gifted to me around my neck, texting a man who is interested in me, my angle twisted on a piece of uneven pavement, and I felt myself fall to the ground.
I landed on my hands.
When you fall, people are embarrassed for you. That makes the fall more embarrassing than it otherwise would be.
But I played not embarrassed. "I'm kind of clumsy, so I'm not surprised this happened," I shrugged off. And I shut off embarrassment as much as I can, and I deny the pain of the open sore on my hand and the my ankle, which I later discover is bleeding. I'm fine, I say. I have this odd experience where I feel pain at first, then I feel numbness, then the pain is gone, I tell one of the resident's boyfriends. Maybe it's the acupuncture, I say to myself. Don't want to sound crazy in front of this new group of people. I'll wait a while longer for my eccentricity to come out, though I did allow myself to show them some samba.
I'm not sure this group can handle all that I am...nor should they. They are my colleagues, my professional colleagues. I'll save all that I am for other venues.
But I did think about why I fell. Was this a sign? Was it a sign that I'm going in the wrong direction? I don't drink alcohol, but am I around alcohol too much? I still pray, but do I not pray enough? I don't have sex, but am I flirting with the possibility too much?
Am I too much of earth, and not enough for God?
I'm so inspired this morning with all of these questions and all of these thoughts because I just watched a TED talk this morning that was assigned to us prior to the session we are to have during this block of our residency. It felt very touchy-feely at the time, but it was informative and I think important for me to reflect on.
Dr. Brene Brown discusses "The Power of Vulnerability." In brief, she talks about how those people who led the happiest lives were able to love wholeheartedly, and a big part of that was accepting and embracing vulnerability...the vulnerability of life and loving. They were also able to embrace their worthiness. They were worthy of loving, worthy of feeling connection, connection that defines us all so much.
But listen to the talk. Really. I'm not a self-help buff by any means, but it's 20 minutes, and it will help put what's coming next into context.
So I listened to this, and I was struck! That's me! Talk about strumming my pain with her fingers, singing my life with her words. This is me in a nutshell.
Necessarily, many of us who go into medicine are perfectionists. I am a diehard. To say I studied hard is an understatement. I strove to get all As at all times, and when I didn't, I beat myself up about it. I'm not that smart, because I got a 3.908 in college, and my science GPA was even lower. I knew people who got higher. I'm not that smart, because I got an 85% A in my organic chemistry class. It was on a curve, so it wasn't a real A.
I'm not that smart, because I'm not perfect, in other words. You always strive for that perfection as a perfectionist. Even if one's imperfection is good enough.
Worthiness is something I struggle with in all domains. I don't know if it's more often than not but too often, I don't feel worthy, or I at least question my worthiness. Was I worthy of being called a good medical student? Am I worthy of any type of praise? Was I worthy enough to attend Harvard, really? Am I worthy of being called a Muslim? Am I worthy before God? Am I worthy of being loved?
Because I'm not there...I'm not there.
Let's break down one of these for now. Am I worthy of being loved? I don't know. Sometimes, I feel like, absolutely. But most of the time, I feel like, the proof is in the pudding. And then I remind myself that I am loved, by family and friends...but that's not what I mean.
And all of us who wonder this know that's not what we mean. We want a partner! We want romantic love, carnal love, whatever you want to call it and whatever you want to deny. So I ask, am I worthy of being loved by a man who will marry me or am I not?
If I am worthy, then why am I still single?
Why am I still single?
"Because the right one hasn't come along yet," they all say. This satisfies me for, like, five seconds.
But what if he never comes?" I sometimes say aloud, sometimes keep to myself. But for real, though. What if he never comes? What if he doesn't exist? What if God wants me to be single for the rest of my life because that is my portion?
"God doesn't want that for us," some would say, my father, for example.
Well then, why am I suffering so much from being single? This must be a trial, and so far, I'm failing.
Failing. Failing.
There's that word that I've used so much for someone who has actually never failed. Alhamdulillah, I've never failed to fast Ramadan. Alhamdulillah, I've never failed a class or a test or anything academic like that. Alhamdulillah, I've never failed my family, let them down...
But I use that word, fail, a lot to describe myself. Failure at life. Meaning failure at love.
Am I a failure at love?
"No, you just haven't found the one yet."
The one. I don't want to believe in that shit.
It just seems like an invitation to let down, disappointment, disillusionment. It's something you can only know in retrospect.
And that still doesn't answer the question...what if I'm not going to find the one, the right, the whatever? What if no man ever wants to marry me like no man has ever (legitimately) wanted to marry me?
Online proposals from random international Muslims aside.
Dr. Brown said that we numb vulnerability, some of us with addictions to substances, food and drug. I did the food thing a little bit, but I think numbing several emotions led me, leads me, to cycle into depression at different points in my life.
I numb attraction. Before I was practicing fully, I numbed it because it was inconvenient and risky. Why allow myself to be attracted to someone if they don't like me back? Yet, it inevitably happened, but I fought it so hard.
I fight so hard.
I liked when I became more practicing an such attraction was haram, anyway. Then, I was justified in numbing, denying, and I felt like it was an act of worship on top of it to obfuscate so thoroughly. And anything else was sin. This is how God intended us to be. Fight the base way we were created in order to attain the spiritual heights to transcend this earthly world in anticipation of Heaven.
But there is no easy way to follow God.
There is no easy way because we can deny so hard in places where we deem love and attraction to be inappropriate that we don't love in the right places when it is appropriate.
Perfectionists are among us all throughout life and over time, many of them have had loud voices and have led many of us down the road to masochism, using God's name in vain.
The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, must have been a perfectionist as well. I'm thinking of the Hadith that I love but that bites me hard at the same time. That religion should be very easy, but all we have to do is try to be as perfect as we can.
Ummmm...that is not easy. That second part. Not even very easy. Lord have mercy on me, but it's not.
Dr. Brown talks about practicing vulnerability. As my mother would say, if these people would just read the Qur'an and find Islam. It's very hard to find Islam. This world is too polluted right now by Muslims and non-Muslims corrupting Islam and obscuring the beautiful path. I pray that I'm not one of them. I'm fine with not everyone being Muslim because becoming Muslim in this country often inspires people to leave or lose sight of those principles that led them to submit to God in the first place in favor of bullshit...
But I digress.
I say all of this because practicing vulnerability is practicing Islam. Submitting to God is allowing yourself to be vulnerable to a Being that you cannot touch, who is perceivable through His creation only, who we have no proper pronouns for in our languages that are not limited by gender, who we can't help but anthropomorphize in our minds (yes, everyone, even Muslims). Submitting to a Being that we cannot sense with our five senses directly.
Trusting Him when there's no evidence (and no promise!) that you'll get what you want. Trusting that what He wants is best, even if you don't get what you want. Trusting Him that he's guiding you, although you feel like you don't know where you're going.
You know what you're supposed to do, but you don't know how to do it. This can lead you astray.
Astray. That's almost a curse word for me.
Practicing vulnerability, for me, begins spiritually, so begins with my relationship with God. Worthiness, I should seek first with God.
Because human beings, we're all guilty of this, but we'll seek these things in arms, physical arms, first. In significant others in particular sometimes...
But is my harkening so much toward God above the carnal, which calls me deeply, as is my nature, as I was created by my Creator, my attempt at perfection that cannot be achieved, due to my nature? And should I seek something unattainable? Or should I embrace my imperfections, in the name of God, and move forward?
So, why am I still single? I could say a lot of things. Part of me wants to fault myself. I'm too intense, I talk too much, I'm too ambitious, I'm too picky, I'm too...fat. Another part of me wants to fault men. They don't know a good thing when they see it, they don't value virtue (or at least its attempts), they don't value an intelligent woman, they don't value my beauty, they're emotionally lazy, they want sex and no commitment. I could do a life retrospective, and it all started when I embraced, as a practicing Muslimah, my fear of vulnerability by seeking a form of religion in which there was a straight way in life in which all good things were guaranteed, a straight way and a right way to do things so I wouldn't get hurt by a man who just desires my sex and then leaves me when/if he gets what he wants... So I didn't date, because it was haram, and so I remained single. God intends marriage to protect us from the pains of premarital intimacy with people who are not married to us under God. Just to find out that there are no guarantees, not even in marriage (and sometimes especially not in marriage), and so one of the major reasons I became more practicing is now moot, but I always have been and always will be Muslim. And a Muslimah who practices Islam who is not super conservative is hard to find a match for, when the Muslim men like her are not seeking Muslim women.
But the answer is, I don't know.
I don't know, and I'm just going to live with it.
It's time for me to get ready for work (haha, sounds funny), but this reflection is obviously not over, just as insha'Allah life isn't over. I've avoided making mistakes and I've tried to be as perfect as possible. And when I make a mistake, I don't feel comfortable pronouncing the name of God over it. But maybe herein lies the problem. Maybe I don't pronounce the name of God enough, figuratively speaking. Maybe I fear bringing God into areas of my life where I know I'm traveling a raw path. Maybe I need to come to God more often and be more frank about my vulnerabilities and when I fall into error, in the middle of it happening, instead of shutting Him out for shame that it's happening. I'm not saying sin in the name of God, but...that I need to at least hold fast to God consciousness in everything, everything, everything that I do, and not take breaks...
I don't know why I'm still single when I really don't want to be. I'm not alone. God knows, I do not. God knows why we're on this earth, and I do not. I'm going to embrace that and go about my way.
I just don't know what that all means yet.
EDIT: Hahaha, just noticed that I misspelled uncensored. This is what comes of Firefox not spell-checking my titles. That was not intentional!
Yesterday, as I was walking with my co-residents to Pride with my rainbow-colored scarf that I never wore as a khimar at the time it was gifted to me around my neck, texting a man who is interested in me, my angle twisted on a piece of uneven pavement, and I felt myself fall to the ground.
I landed on my hands.
When you fall, people are embarrassed for you. That makes the fall more embarrassing than it otherwise would be.
But I played not embarrassed. "I'm kind of clumsy, so I'm not surprised this happened," I shrugged off. And I shut off embarrassment as much as I can, and I deny the pain of the open sore on my hand and the my ankle, which I later discover is bleeding. I'm fine, I say. I have this odd experience where I feel pain at first, then I feel numbness, then the pain is gone, I tell one of the resident's boyfriends. Maybe it's the acupuncture, I say to myself. Don't want to sound crazy in front of this new group of people. I'll wait a while longer for my eccentricity to come out, though I did allow myself to show them some samba.
I'm not sure this group can handle all that I am...nor should they. They are my colleagues, my professional colleagues. I'll save all that I am for other venues.
But I did think about why I fell. Was this a sign? Was it a sign that I'm going in the wrong direction? I don't drink alcohol, but am I around alcohol too much? I still pray, but do I not pray enough? I don't have sex, but am I flirting with the possibility too much?
Am I too much of earth, and not enough for God?
I'm so inspired this morning with all of these questions and all of these thoughts because I just watched a TED talk this morning that was assigned to us prior to the session we are to have during this block of our residency. It felt very touchy-feely at the time, but it was informative and I think important for me to reflect on.
Dr. Brene Brown discusses "The Power of Vulnerability." In brief, she talks about how those people who led the happiest lives were able to love wholeheartedly, and a big part of that was accepting and embracing vulnerability...the vulnerability of life and loving. They were also able to embrace their worthiness. They were worthy of loving, worthy of feeling connection, connection that defines us all so much.
But listen to the talk. Really. I'm not a self-help buff by any means, but it's 20 minutes, and it will help put what's coming next into context.
So I listened to this, and I was struck! That's me! Talk about strumming my pain with her fingers, singing my life with her words. This is me in a nutshell.
Necessarily, many of us who go into medicine are perfectionists. I am a diehard. To say I studied hard is an understatement. I strove to get all As at all times, and when I didn't, I beat myself up about it. I'm not that smart, because I got a 3.908 in college, and my science GPA was even lower. I knew people who got higher. I'm not that smart, because I got an 85% A in my organic chemistry class. It was on a curve, so it wasn't a real A.
I'm not that smart, because I'm not perfect, in other words. You always strive for that perfection as a perfectionist. Even if one's imperfection is good enough.
Worthiness is something I struggle with in all domains. I don't know if it's more often than not but too often, I don't feel worthy, or I at least question my worthiness. Was I worthy of being called a good medical student? Am I worthy of any type of praise? Was I worthy enough to attend Harvard, really? Am I worthy of being called a Muslim? Am I worthy before God? Am I worthy of being loved?
Because I'm not there...I'm not there.
Let's break down one of these for now. Am I worthy of being loved? I don't know. Sometimes, I feel like, absolutely. But most of the time, I feel like, the proof is in the pudding. And then I remind myself that I am loved, by family and friends...but that's not what I mean.
And all of us who wonder this know that's not what we mean. We want a partner! We want romantic love, carnal love, whatever you want to call it and whatever you want to deny. So I ask, am I worthy of being loved by a man who will marry me or am I not?
If I am worthy, then why am I still single?
Why am I still single?
"Because the right one hasn't come along yet," they all say. This satisfies me for, like, five seconds.
But what if he never comes?" I sometimes say aloud, sometimes keep to myself. But for real, though. What if he never comes? What if he doesn't exist? What if God wants me to be single for the rest of my life because that is my portion?
"God doesn't want that for us," some would say, my father, for example.
Well then, why am I suffering so much from being single? This must be a trial, and so far, I'm failing.
Failing. Failing.
There's that word that I've used so much for someone who has actually never failed. Alhamdulillah, I've never failed to fast Ramadan. Alhamdulillah, I've never failed a class or a test or anything academic like that. Alhamdulillah, I've never failed my family, let them down...
But I use that word, fail, a lot to describe myself. Failure at life. Meaning failure at love.
Am I a failure at love?
"No, you just haven't found the one yet."
The one. I don't want to believe in that shit.
It just seems like an invitation to let down, disappointment, disillusionment. It's something you can only know in retrospect.
And that still doesn't answer the question...what if I'm not going to find the one, the right, the whatever? What if no man ever wants to marry me like no man has ever (legitimately) wanted to marry me?
Online proposals from random international Muslims aside.
Dr. Brown said that we numb vulnerability, some of us with addictions to substances, food and drug. I did the food thing a little bit, but I think numbing several emotions led me, leads me, to cycle into depression at different points in my life.
I numb attraction. Before I was practicing fully, I numbed it because it was inconvenient and risky. Why allow myself to be attracted to someone if they don't like me back? Yet, it inevitably happened, but I fought it so hard.
I fight so hard.
I liked when I became more practicing an such attraction was haram, anyway. Then, I was justified in numbing, denying, and I felt like it was an act of worship on top of it to obfuscate so thoroughly. And anything else was sin. This is how God intended us to be. Fight the base way we were created in order to attain the spiritual heights to transcend this earthly world in anticipation of Heaven.
But there is no easy way to follow God.
There is no easy way because we can deny so hard in places where we deem love and attraction to be inappropriate that we don't love in the right places when it is appropriate.
Perfectionists are among us all throughout life and over time, many of them have had loud voices and have led many of us down the road to masochism, using God's name in vain.
The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, must have been a perfectionist as well. I'm thinking of the Hadith that I love but that bites me hard at the same time. That religion should be very easy, but all we have to do is try to be as perfect as we can.
Ummmm...that is not easy. That second part. Not even very easy. Lord have mercy on me, but it's not.
Dr. Brown talks about practicing vulnerability. As my mother would say, if these people would just read the Qur'an and find Islam. It's very hard to find Islam. This world is too polluted right now by Muslims and non-Muslims corrupting Islam and obscuring the beautiful path. I pray that I'm not one of them. I'm fine with not everyone being Muslim because becoming Muslim in this country often inspires people to leave or lose sight of those principles that led them to submit to God in the first place in favor of bullshit...
But I digress.
I say all of this because practicing vulnerability is practicing Islam. Submitting to God is allowing yourself to be vulnerable to a Being that you cannot touch, who is perceivable through His creation only, who we have no proper pronouns for in our languages that are not limited by gender, who we can't help but anthropomorphize in our minds (yes, everyone, even Muslims). Submitting to a Being that we cannot sense with our five senses directly.
Trusting Him when there's no evidence (and no promise!) that you'll get what you want. Trusting that what He wants is best, even if you don't get what you want. Trusting Him that he's guiding you, although you feel like you don't know where you're going.
You know what you're supposed to do, but you don't know how to do it. This can lead you astray.
Astray. That's almost a curse word for me.
Practicing vulnerability, for me, begins spiritually, so begins with my relationship with God. Worthiness, I should seek first with God.
Because human beings, we're all guilty of this, but we'll seek these things in arms, physical arms, first. In significant others in particular sometimes...
But is my harkening so much toward God above the carnal, which calls me deeply, as is my nature, as I was created by my Creator, my attempt at perfection that cannot be achieved, due to my nature? And should I seek something unattainable? Or should I embrace my imperfections, in the name of God, and move forward?
So, why am I still single? I could say a lot of things. Part of me wants to fault myself. I'm too intense, I talk too much, I'm too ambitious, I'm too picky, I'm too...fat. Another part of me wants to fault men. They don't know a good thing when they see it, they don't value virtue (or at least its attempts), they don't value an intelligent woman, they don't value my beauty, they're emotionally lazy, they want sex and no commitment. I could do a life retrospective, and it all started when I embraced, as a practicing Muslimah, my fear of vulnerability by seeking a form of religion in which there was a straight way in life in which all good things were guaranteed, a straight way and a right way to do things so I wouldn't get hurt by a man who just desires my sex and then leaves me when/if he gets what he wants... So I didn't date, because it was haram, and so I remained single. God intends marriage to protect us from the pains of premarital intimacy with people who are not married to us under God. Just to find out that there are no guarantees, not even in marriage (and sometimes especially not in marriage), and so one of the major reasons I became more practicing is now moot, but I always have been and always will be Muslim. And a Muslimah who practices Islam who is not super conservative is hard to find a match for, when the Muslim men like her are not seeking Muslim women.
But the answer is, I don't know.
I don't know, and I'm just going to live with it.
It's time for me to get ready for work (haha, sounds funny), but this reflection is obviously not over, just as insha'Allah life isn't over. I've avoided making mistakes and I've tried to be as perfect as possible. And when I make a mistake, I don't feel comfortable pronouncing the name of God over it. But maybe herein lies the problem. Maybe I don't pronounce the name of God enough, figuratively speaking. Maybe I fear bringing God into areas of my life where I know I'm traveling a raw path. Maybe I need to come to God more often and be more frank about my vulnerabilities and when I fall into error, in the middle of it happening, instead of shutting Him out for shame that it's happening. I'm not saying sin in the name of God, but...that I need to at least hold fast to God consciousness in everything, everything, everything that I do, and not take breaks...
I don't know why I'm still single when I really don't want to be. I'm not alone. God knows, I do not. God knows why we're on this earth, and I do not. I'm going to embrace that and go about my way.
I just don't know what that all means yet.
EDIT: Hahaha, just noticed that I misspelled uncensored. This is what comes of Firefox not spell-checking my titles. That was not intentional!
Friday, May 25, 2012
[uncensored]: Graduating Harvard
As salaam alaikum,
I have a feeling this entry is going to take a long time, so expect it to be in parts.
First of all, all thanks to Allah (swt), I graduated yesterday from Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health with my M.D. and M.P.H! All thanks to Allah (swt) for all of the support of my family, friends and the faculty who have supported me along the way. And thanks to you, my readers, my virtual Muslim family, some of you who have been with me from the beginning, for your support! You have helped me to furnish what has been a spiritual home for me when my own community has been quite lacking or honestly, nonexistent. I love you all!
There is a doctor in the house, but there is definitely a lot more for me to learn, and insha'Allah my residency program will take me there. Heads up, Seattle, this Muslimah is on her way!
This graduation was unlike any other graduation I've had before. I was very reflective of the past, prayerful for the future and mostly grateful for the present as it was. I sat amongst hundreds (thousands?) of graduate students with crimson hoods, listened to an undergraduate senior address the graduating class in Latin, and watched as old-world style ceremony played out before my eyes, including the happy mayor of Middlesex County banging his staff into the ground, calling the "meeting" into session.
It was so surreal to graduate from Harvard.
And this is coming from someone who has never been in awe of the institution. No, seriously. During undergraduate applications, I very purposefully did not apply to Harvard. When they sent their recruitment letter to me at my parents home when I was in high school, I never opened it. I applied and got into Yale and then ended up going to University of Michigan because I got a tuition scholarship there, and that was that.
I felt like even applying to Harvard was putting on heirs. I'm not sure why I was more comfortable applying to Yale, though. I think the real answer that I wasn't willing to admit was that Harvard intimidated me. It intimidated me and, after all, I just wanted to be a physician. I didn't need to go to the a school like that that was so expensive and so out of the league of anything anyone in my family had done just to fulfill a few pre-med requirements.
And so it was. I spent four happy and challenging years at the University of Michigan, and I will forever bleed blue...you know, in that not-really-a-sports-fan type of way.
But you come of age watching football by your heritage, hehe.
Anyway...
I ended up applying to Harvard for medical school on a whim. I had a few big-named medical schools that I somehow had the audacity to think I could get into...Johns Hopkins, Columbia...and most of all, University of California, San Francisco, the eminent UCSF. I fell in love with UCSF sometime at the end of my freshman year of college, learning that it was a university dedicated solely to the medical sciences. I formed myself at Michigan to be the type of competitive candidate for a medical school like UCSF. Everything from my grades, my extracurricular activities, my leadership roles...all was for, if God so willed, my admission to UCSF.
Harvard was an afterthought, a curiosity printed in crimson on a little postcard that was mailed to my parents' house one day in late spring, telling me that my MCAT scores were competitive, and that I should consider applying to Harvard.
Oh, really?
By this time, I had the MSAR, a book whose full name I forget but was basically the resource for all of the vital statistics of all accredited medical schools in the country. I had read over and highlighted key points about most of the medical schools that I had heard about, and a few others in choice locations. I hadn't really even considered the possibility of Harvard until I got that postcard. So, I checked them out, and to my surprise, the class of 2009 was 13% African American.
It doesn't seem like a feat, considering the United States is just under 13% black, but considering most medical schools have less than that much of a percentage of a black population and that this large of a black population was not seen in any medical school outside of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, HBCUs, (and I know this because I checked all of the medical schools in the MSAR), I was surprised. That was totally not what I was expecting from Harvard.
I interviewed at Harvard Medical School like it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, fully expecting not to be accepted, but taking in the opportunity. As friendly medical students helped me navigate the then-confusing quad and medical campuses to get to my off-campus interviews, I was pleased to see a humility that I didn't expect to see at Harvard, which I had previously considered to be home of the legacy and old-rich, a place where I wouldn't feel welcome.
And welcome they made me feel.
But even with all of this, I wouldn't know the half of it. I got into Harvard a little bit before I heard news from UCSF, my dream school. I went to Harvard's then all-underrepresented-minority weekend, Alliance Weekend, with little idea hat to expect.
I didn't know that it would be this weekend that would cement before me the path of my life to come.
So there's so much I can say about what it means to graduate from Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. And not all of it is positive or glowing or even warranting of any of the flowery language I can occasionally concoct. I didn't get a chance to do my exit interview with the minority office, but I hear that they ask each student the question, if you had a chance to do this all over again, would you have chosen to come to Harvard and why or why not.
By the end of first year, the answer would have been a resounding, of course I would have! Second year, the answer would have been, maybe not, because I feel like half the stuff I learned I taught myself during board studying. Third year, I would have been like, do I even want to go into medicine? Fourth year, it's all about the Benjamins, baby...should have gone where I got more money...
But all joking aside, I know I wouldn't have done anything different, given a chance to do this again, and maybe I would have even made the decision more purposefully. Maybe, given a chance to do this again, I would have experimented more with the different professional hats that I can wear...
I don't know. I just graduated from Harvard finding myself wondering if I could have done even more while I was here, if I could have pushed myself more, if I could have sealed my professional trajectory even more with a stronger resume, with more projects, with research and papers, more work abroad...
And I found myself wanting to recall my years here and all I feel it means to graduate from this place. So I will, over the next few days, piece by piece, examine this all, what it means for me as a Submitter, a Believer, and insha'Allah what I hope for my future, given the words of wisdom of Dr. Dan Berwick, who addressed my class this year.
So much to say.
I have a feeling this entry is going to take a long time, so expect it to be in parts.
First of all, all thanks to Allah (swt), I graduated yesterday from Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health with my M.D. and M.P.H! All thanks to Allah (swt) for all of the support of my family, friends and the faculty who have supported me along the way. And thanks to you, my readers, my virtual Muslim family, some of you who have been with me from the beginning, for your support! You have helped me to furnish what has been a spiritual home for me when my own community has been quite lacking or honestly, nonexistent. I love you all!
There is a doctor in the house, but there is definitely a lot more for me to learn, and insha'Allah my residency program will take me there. Heads up, Seattle, this Muslimah is on her way!
This graduation was unlike any other graduation I've had before. I was very reflective of the past, prayerful for the future and mostly grateful for the present as it was. I sat amongst hundreds (thousands?) of graduate students with crimson hoods, listened to an undergraduate senior address the graduating class in Latin, and watched as old-world style ceremony played out before my eyes, including the happy mayor of Middlesex County banging his staff into the ground, calling the "meeting" into session.
It was so surreal to graduate from Harvard.
And this is coming from someone who has never been in awe of the institution. No, seriously. During undergraduate applications, I very purposefully did not apply to Harvard. When they sent their recruitment letter to me at my parents home when I was in high school, I never opened it. I applied and got into Yale and then ended up going to University of Michigan because I got a tuition scholarship there, and that was that.
I felt like even applying to Harvard was putting on heirs. I'm not sure why I was more comfortable applying to Yale, though. I think the real answer that I wasn't willing to admit was that Harvard intimidated me. It intimidated me and, after all, I just wanted to be a physician. I didn't need to go to the a school like that that was so expensive and so out of the league of anything anyone in my family had done just to fulfill a few pre-med requirements.
And so it was. I spent four happy and challenging years at the University of Michigan, and I will forever bleed blue...you know, in that not-really-a-sports-fan type of way.
But you come of age watching football by your heritage, hehe.
Anyway...
I ended up applying to Harvard for medical school on a whim. I had a few big-named medical schools that I somehow had the audacity to think I could get into...Johns Hopkins, Columbia...and most of all, University of California, San Francisco, the eminent UCSF. I fell in love with UCSF sometime at the end of my freshman year of college, learning that it was a university dedicated solely to the medical sciences. I formed myself at Michigan to be the type of competitive candidate for a medical school like UCSF. Everything from my grades, my extracurricular activities, my leadership roles...all was for, if God so willed, my admission to UCSF.
Harvard was an afterthought, a curiosity printed in crimson on a little postcard that was mailed to my parents' house one day in late spring, telling me that my MCAT scores were competitive, and that I should consider applying to Harvard.
Oh, really?
By this time, I had the MSAR, a book whose full name I forget but was basically the resource for all of the vital statistics of all accredited medical schools in the country. I had read over and highlighted key points about most of the medical schools that I had heard about, and a few others in choice locations. I hadn't really even considered the possibility of Harvard until I got that postcard. So, I checked them out, and to my surprise, the class of 2009 was 13% African American.
It doesn't seem like a feat, considering the United States is just under 13% black, but considering most medical schools have less than that much of a percentage of a black population and that this large of a black population was not seen in any medical school outside of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, HBCUs, (and I know this because I checked all of the medical schools in the MSAR), I was surprised. That was totally not what I was expecting from Harvard.
I interviewed at Harvard Medical School like it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, fully expecting not to be accepted, but taking in the opportunity. As friendly medical students helped me navigate the then-confusing quad and medical campuses to get to my off-campus interviews, I was pleased to see a humility that I didn't expect to see at Harvard, which I had previously considered to be home of the legacy and old-rich, a place where I wouldn't feel welcome.
And welcome they made me feel.
But even with all of this, I wouldn't know the half of it. I got into Harvard a little bit before I heard news from UCSF, my dream school. I went to Harvard's then all-underrepresented-minority weekend, Alliance Weekend, with little idea hat to expect.
I didn't know that it would be this weekend that would cement before me the path of my life to come.
So there's so much I can say about what it means to graduate from Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. And not all of it is positive or glowing or even warranting of any of the flowery language I can occasionally concoct. I didn't get a chance to do my exit interview with the minority office, but I hear that they ask each student the question, if you had a chance to do this all over again, would you have chosen to come to Harvard and why or why not.
By the end of first year, the answer would have been a resounding, of course I would have! Second year, the answer would have been, maybe not, because I feel like half the stuff I learned I taught myself during board studying. Third year, I would have been like, do I even want to go into medicine? Fourth year, it's all about the Benjamins, baby...should have gone where I got more money...
But all joking aside, I know I wouldn't have done anything different, given a chance to do this again, and maybe I would have even made the decision more purposefully. Maybe, given a chance to do this again, I would have experimented more with the different professional hats that I can wear...
I don't know. I just graduated from Harvard finding myself wondering if I could have done even more while I was here, if I could have pushed myself more, if I could have sealed my professional trajectory even more with a stronger resume, with more projects, with research and papers, more work abroad...
And I found myself wanting to recall my years here and all I feel it means to graduate from this place. So I will, over the next few days, piece by piece, examine this all, what it means for me as a Submitter, a Believer, and insha'Allah what I hope for my future, given the words of wisdom of Dr. Dan Berwick, who addressed my class this year.
So much to say.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
[uncensored]: Love in the Time of Autism
As salaam alaikum,
This was the runner-up for the loveinshallah.com post I contributed this week. As such, it has not been edited as well as that piece, but I still find it worth sharing:
This was the runner-up for the loveinshallah.com post I contributed this week. As such, it has not been edited as well as that piece, but I still find it worth sharing:
I
was sitting in an observation room in the developmental medicine center in the
children’s hospital, watching a psychologist administer the ADOS to a young
child who would most certainly be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder
when I came to the conclusion that my ex-boyfriend had Asperger’s syndrome.
That
would explain a lot. That would explain why sometimes, when we went out, he
preferred not to talk to me and we ate in silence. It would explain why he told
me he felt like he wasn’t from this world, like he was an alien that no one
could relate to, and he couldn’t relate to them. He couldn’t relate to me,
either. Maybe it’s why he saw older pictures of me and didn’t recognize me
because my hair was different. This is why he laughed when everyone else
laughed but didn’t understand what was funny. Why he thought it was appropriate
to break up with me and tell me that it was because of my weight, and
everything else that went wrong in the dissolution of even our hopes of being
friends after he eventually apologized for the weight comment. Why he was able
to disconnect so cleanly from me, in spite of all that we had shared, just like
unplugging himself from a socket.
That
would explain a lot, but I can’t count on that. I have to stop coming up with
excuses for him. He was mean to me and for whatever reason he didn’t want to be
with me, he isn't. I am better than him, end of story.
But
maybe he is on the spectrum…
Before
learning the DSM-IV criteria for autism spectrum disorders in medical school,
like my mother, I suspected different people in my life of being on the
spectrum. There was the friend in high school who was very socially awkward and
whose conversations seemed to be based in scripting, taking phrases and
dialogue from movies and shows to supplement language.
Then,
of course, there is the broader autism phenotype theory within my own immediate
family. My grandfather is suspect, with his decades-long love of reading the
dictionary and highlighting everything with his red, ballpoint pen, one of the
many fixtures at his table of things that is arranged just so. I’ve briefly
wondered about myself and my odd fixations on things, like, most recently, the
history of the T, the subway, in Boston, and my fascination with discontinued
lines and hidden tracks…
I
don’t think I’m on the spectrum, but I wonder what loving someone on the
spectrum, my brother, has done to the way I love men.
I
loved that my ex was quirky. I loved that when he thought, he thought in moving
objects. Like thinking about sports then imagining a spinning football and how
that would translate into a mechanics problem for his students. It was okay
that he went days without speaking to me, that he sometimes wanted to be left
to brood while with me, that he sometimes seemed distant. When he was present,
he more than made up for it with surprise moments of intuitiveness and concrete
ways of sorting through my torturous stream-of-consciousness conversations with
him. But that did not a relationship make. I didn’t realize this until I
started getting over his breaking up with me, though.
I
went to a conference for parents with children with special needs, and attended
a session on supporting the siblings of these children. They mentioned
something that gave me pause. That sometimes, siblings of children with special
needs have problems establishing healthy romantic relationships because they
don’t understand that someone who loves you shouldn’t hurt you. Was that me?
I
mean, siblings of children with special needs were more likely to go into
service fields. I’m in medicine. That’s me.
But
Emeka never treated me badly. When we were growing up, yes, sometimes he seemed
to completely ignore me, to be content with my not existing. He was non-verbal
in the beginning, so he didn’t talk to me for years. My mother tells of the
time that I reported to her, frustrated, that “Emeka won’t play with me.” And
he didn’t. My mother described it as him having “his own agenda.” Professionals
in the field refer to it as self-directedness.
There’s
something about the way the brains of people on the spectrum work that they
process human faces as they process objects. Parents and siblings are often
used as objects to obtain other objects. Little eye contact is made and the
individual seems very independent simply because they are living in a world all
their own, with no other people, more excited by objects than human contact. So Emeka preferred to line things up and to scan the order of things than to look me
in the face and engage in play.
But
I always loved my brother for who he was. He embarrassed me with his tantrums in
grocery stores, but that was his greatest offense. I protected him at school
but I still smacked him upside the head with pillows and paper plates at home
when he got on my nerves, just as I imagine I would as a big sister to a neurotypical brother. I loved him though, for years, I got nothing back.
Was
this why I let my ex be so distant while we were together? Is this why I wanted
him back so much and felt like he was the best thing that ever happened to me,
and ever would? Because he was verbal and had moments of relatedness?
My
mother disagrees with this analysis. From her vantage point, she says that my
relationship with my brother has given me high expectations for my
relationships with men. She says that my relationship with Emeka has made me
empathetic, patient, generous and kind. I am very careful with my relationships
because relating to a brother with autism over the years has required special
care. So I expect the men I am in relationships with to take the amount of care
with relationships that I do, and they don’t.
And
I don’t understand why!
Yeah,
I kind of like that explanation of things. It’s more empowering. I struggled
with the way my relationship with my ex ended because it was so abrupt and
messy. “I’m no longer satisfied with this relationship,” while he was really
the one not satisfying me because I
saw him so seldom though he lived less than a mile away. And somehow, he dumped
me. Meanwhile, I was ready to say, if you don’t want to see me once a week, we
can see each other once every other week. No longer satisfying? And he was shocked
when I broke out crying. He had been thinking about that for two weeks, came
forward, and was shocked that I was upset for months afterwards. What is wrong
with you? And you told me I was fat? How could you be so cruel? You apologized
and then gave the same lame-o excuse, “I’m not ready for a relationship,” and
then almost immediately you’re in another one with a young, skinny chick. And
you want to be friends? How is that okay?
His
gross mishandling of our relationship, which was always more bumbling than
malicious…makes me wonder if he is, indeed, on the spectrum. Maybe I want to
believe that because in addition to all the things that my relating to my
brother has made me, it’s also made me forgiving.
I
forgave my brother for embarrassing me and ignoring me all those years. I forgave
him for cramping my style at school. He made up for it as a teenager, when his
language began blossoming. One day in particular, I remember playing a VHS tape
of a show we used to watch as kids. In a way that would later become
characteristic, he told me that he remembered that we used to watch the show
together. He told me, “It’s from the years! It’s from the years we did.”
My
baby brother remembered something we did together. Even though he was running
around, spinning, not making eye contact, not sitting for the duration of the
show, he remembers that it as something we shared. And I cried the first time
he told me this. I cried in spite of myself, because I thought I was stoic to
the fact that my brother just couldn’t share with me, but I wasn’t. It still
meant a great deal to me to know that he was there all along.
My
little brother who I once called “Fuzzy Joystick Head,” in spite, by God’s
grace, developed language and social skills that were sufficient for us to
share in experiences. And I rejoiced in that, and I don’t even remember what it
felt like to be embarrassed by him these days…how can I when…he’s come so far,
and teaches me so much every day as I watch him continue to develop and make
milestones we didn’t think he ever would…
I
forgive my brother, and in wanting my ex to be on the spectrum, I guess I want
to forgive him, too. But unlike my brother, my ex has done nothing to deserve a
pardon.
It
hurt, because I loved him, but I should move on. Before I met him, I had
decided to give up on relationships and dedicate my life to becoming the
physician that I want to so I’ll be able to support my brother when my parents
are no longer able. I think I’ll just go back to that.
Friday, February 24, 2012
In Wait for Mr. Right
As salaam alaikum,
After the thing with Y didn't work out (long story...long, happily hilarious story, haha!) I suddenly felt free! It was inexplicable. Instead of my usual moping after the end of a relationship (or not-relationship, as this case was) and believing that "no man likes me," I went to sleep, had a crazy dream where I felt freer than I ever have (but, for the sake of self-censorship, haha, will not reveal), and woke up and had an awesome day.
There was something liberating about not waiting around any more for this man to decide if he wanted to be with me or not, or get things started. There was something liberating about trying to make him fit in my man paradigm just because he was the one who liked me. Especially after I made the declaration "No more Nigerians!" (not that I'm excluding my motherland brothers entirely...but the record, brothers and sisters, has not been good), I felt especially free!
I realized that feeling lonely is one thing, but feeling like only one type of man or one group of men will likely end up marrying you is another feeling of desolation all together. Don't get me wrong, I love my heritage! I just don't think that ending up with a Nigerian man (and if Allah (swt) wills it, who am I to dispute it!) is necessarily the best fit with all that I am. I am Nigerian, but my tradition in Islam is more that of African Americans and not Nigerian Muslims, for example. I'm most Nigerian in my body type (apparently) and my food palate, but the second pais do meu coração is Brazil! I keep imagining instances in my life in which I could just pick up and live there, maybe in Salvador, for years. I clearly know more Brazilian music than Nigerian music. I don't speak Igbo...I speak Spanish and Portuguese. If I had to choose a hemisphere longitudinally, I would stay on this one. The family I grew up with is here, Latin America is here.
As I say in "The Hybrid Dance," I am more than an Igbo who is not Christian, more than an African American Muslim. I am a Muslimah, first and foremost, independent of my culture and ethnicity. I am Igbo Nigerian American, black American and a lot in between. I was born a daughter, a granddaughter a cousin and a niece, and I became a sister along the way to a very special young man who I tease but who has all of my heart. I am also a sambista, a noveleira, a future family physician and public health practitioner. I am a creative writer, a música popular brasileira singer! I am a nerd! I am a hispanohablante and a lusoparlante. I am a soul sister, loving me my soul music throughout the years.
And all of these things I am and all of these things that I have done, I've done by the grace of God without a partner in life, sometimes in wait for him and sometimes not. But I've become this full person not to thereafter mute parts of myself to fit with a man who likes parts of me and doesn't care about the rest. That is not why Allah (swt) gave me this time on earth to develop my interests, my career, my tastes. That is not why God has me waiting now, in wait of my Mr. Right. For me to act like I didn't have this time to become everything I dreamed and never dreamed of becoming just to throw it away for a man who is not it!
No! If that were the case, I could have met said man a long time ago, and maybe I wouldn't have been some of the things that I am. And that would have been okay, but that's not the reality.
No. I may be in wait for Mr. Right, but it isn't a twiddling-my-thumbs kind of wait. It's a Center of Awesomeness kind of wait. It's a me doing my own thing, taking care of my physical and emotional health and my hair health type of wait. It's me loving and living with those in my life type of wait. It's a me continuing to develop type of wait. Because, insha'Allah, I'm graduating from medical school this May with my MD and MPH, and I'm going to begin the transformative process of residency, iA. There is so much more that I'm going to be, iA, if he continues to bless me with the full life I've already had.
And Allah (swt) will provide for me a worthy partner, as I will be a worthy partner for him. Insha'Allah.
I know I'd be more content with myself, in and of myself, if I didn't have this strong need to share myself with others. I think the reason I've always wanted a partner is that I've wanted someone constant, who as long as he lives and as long as we are together, is going to be in my life. And even in times of absence, I'll know he'll be back. He'll be that person that I can share all of my life with, who doesn't move on with his life like friends will, who isn't my parents. I love the times I am alone, just me, writing or chilling or listening to music, but even with music in the background, it's quiet.
My friends know from the way I blab, I love to share my life. And I get lonely when there's no one to share my life with. But lonelier is the feeling that who you may be accepting into your life as a partner may not share. May not let you live in his blue.
É, você que é feito de azul, me deixa morar nesse azul...
I'm in wait for that man made of blue...or yellow, or magenta, or cerulean...or cinammon, or milk chocolate, or cream...of gold, whatever color he may be. I'm in wait for someone who lets me live all up in it, as I'll let him in my burnt orange!
After the thing with Y didn't work out (long story...long, happily hilarious story, haha!) I suddenly felt free! It was inexplicable. Instead of my usual moping after the end of a relationship (or not-relationship, as this case was) and believing that "no man likes me," I went to sleep, had a crazy dream where I felt freer than I ever have (but, for the sake of self-censorship, haha, will not reveal), and woke up and had an awesome day.
There was something liberating about not waiting around any more for this man to decide if he wanted to be with me or not, or get things started. There was something liberating about trying to make him fit in my man paradigm just because he was the one who liked me. Especially after I made the declaration "No more Nigerians!" (not that I'm excluding my motherland brothers entirely...but the record, brothers and sisters, has not been good), I felt especially free!
I realized that feeling lonely is one thing, but feeling like only one type of man or one group of men will likely end up marrying you is another feeling of desolation all together. Don't get me wrong, I love my heritage! I just don't think that ending up with a Nigerian man (and if Allah (swt) wills it, who am I to dispute it!) is necessarily the best fit with all that I am. I am Nigerian, but my tradition in Islam is more that of African Americans and not Nigerian Muslims, for example. I'm most Nigerian in my body type (apparently) and my food palate, but the second pais do meu coração is Brazil! I keep imagining instances in my life in which I could just pick up and live there, maybe in Salvador, for years. I clearly know more Brazilian music than Nigerian music. I don't speak Igbo...I speak Spanish and Portuguese. If I had to choose a hemisphere longitudinally, I would stay on this one. The family I grew up with is here, Latin America is here.
As I say in "The Hybrid Dance," I am more than an Igbo who is not Christian, more than an African American Muslim. I am a Muslimah, first and foremost, independent of my culture and ethnicity. I am Igbo Nigerian American, black American and a lot in between. I was born a daughter, a granddaughter a cousin and a niece, and I became a sister along the way to a very special young man who I tease but who has all of my heart. I am also a sambista, a noveleira, a future family physician and public health practitioner. I am a creative writer, a música popular brasileira singer! I am a nerd! I am a hispanohablante and a lusoparlante. I am a soul sister, loving me my soul music throughout the years.
And all of these things I am and all of these things that I have done, I've done by the grace of God without a partner in life, sometimes in wait for him and sometimes not. But I've become this full person not to thereafter mute parts of myself to fit with a man who likes parts of me and doesn't care about the rest. That is not why Allah (swt) gave me this time on earth to develop my interests, my career, my tastes. That is not why God has me waiting now, in wait of my Mr. Right. For me to act like I didn't have this time to become everything I dreamed and never dreamed of becoming just to throw it away for a man who is not it!
No! If that were the case, I could have met said man a long time ago, and maybe I wouldn't have been some of the things that I am. And that would have been okay, but that's not the reality.
No. I may be in wait for Mr. Right, but it isn't a twiddling-my-thumbs kind of wait. It's a Center of Awesomeness kind of wait. It's a me doing my own thing, taking care of my physical and emotional health and my hair health type of wait. It's me loving and living with those in my life type of wait. It's a me continuing to develop type of wait. Because, insha'Allah, I'm graduating from medical school this May with my MD and MPH, and I'm going to begin the transformative process of residency, iA. There is so much more that I'm going to be, iA, if he continues to bless me with the full life I've already had.
And Allah (swt) will provide for me a worthy partner, as I will be a worthy partner for him. Insha'Allah.
I know I'd be more content with myself, in and of myself, if I didn't have this strong need to share myself with others. I think the reason I've always wanted a partner is that I've wanted someone constant, who as long as he lives and as long as we are together, is going to be in my life. And even in times of absence, I'll know he'll be back. He'll be that person that I can share all of my life with, who doesn't move on with his life like friends will, who isn't my parents. I love the times I am alone, just me, writing or chilling or listening to music, but even with music in the background, it's quiet.
My friends know from the way I blab, I love to share my life. And I get lonely when there's no one to share my life with. But lonelier is the feeling that who you may be accepting into your life as a partner may not share. May not let you live in his blue.
É, você que é feito de azul, me deixa morar nesse azul...
I'm in wait for that man made of blue...or yellow, or magenta, or cerulean...or cinammon, or milk chocolate, or cream...of gold, whatever color he may be. I'm in wait for someone who lets me live all up in it, as I'll let him in my burnt orange!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
My Vision
As salaam alaikum,
I woke up from a series of weird dreams with a vision in my head. As I've gone throughout the day, that vision has grown in my mind and it's almost exploding in my chest right now! I had to write it down, but I end up gchatting with a friend about residency and the infamous (at least to us) rank list, and I didn't get to spend as much time with Martin Lings' Muhammad as I wanted to (and as I've wanted to for years, but always forget to pick a copy up when I have free time to read). Instead, I ended up doing a lot of facebook posting about the anthology, looking up details about the residency programs, and also looking up random things, like family medicine in Brazil and information on adopting children in Nigeria...
But my vision for my life from this moment onward is now in place!
I mean, huge disclaimer...I realize that the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a gley. I realize this. Yet, I'm the same 19-year-old girl who mapped out her entire four years at Michigan with about three different combinations of double majors and minors before deciding on my double major, and then stuck pretty closely to the schedule of courses I thought. I am not comfortable unless I plan out my life for a good chunk of time in the future, even knowing that plans are subject to change.
That's why the whole being single thing is so distressing to me. I'm like, what, I can't actually control that? I mean, of course I know I can't...but that really puts a monkey wrench in my emotional time and energy. It always comes when you least expect it, everyone says...thus throwing a monkey wrench into your other plans, too. But when you are looking to a relationship for half of your religion, let alone emotional fulfillment, companionship, partnership in life...and yet you have to keep on living with that being a grand question mark over your head, what do you do? You have to put the emotional energy you would normally put into stressing about that into something else!
Thus, my vision! Or visions, as they may be...
My career is going to be full, insha'Allah. I hope to become a family physician who has a maternal-child health practice and also participates in community health projects in my community, while having my foot occasionally abroad, later hoping to do some more work at the state or national level in terms of public health...but that later part is too far into the future. Like my said, if it were just for my career, my hands will be full, but my career is not enough to "belly-full" me, as my father would say...
I mean, alhamdulillah, it's quite a blessing to go into a career that I love so much and that I can use to serve others and will be part of my worship in the end, but I am more than medicine and public health.
I'm also writing, fiction and non-ficiton, evidenced by the fact that this exists! Alhamdulillah, the anthology is arrasando so far, even before it's available for purchase, but I also do eventually want to publish A Rose Much Desired as well as I want to work on a screenplay or two, one of course being "The Misadventures of Nisa," for which I'm writing music! I know residency will be busy, especially if I try to have community projects (required or not) alongside my work, but I want to keep writing part of my life and I always want to have at least one writing project going at any given time. Insha'Allah, I hope the anthology is just the first of more publications to come!
And of course, I wanted it all! My career, my greatest hobby (not to mention my other hobbies of singing Brazilian music, samba dancing and keeping in shape otherwise...), and a family! And yet, as I said before, while all things are blessings from Allah (swt), this is the thing that I can control the least. So I can't worry about that. So instead, if I feel like I have space still that I would prefer to fill with family life, I will fill with other things.
First of all, I do plan to eventually have a family, insha'Allah. If I am still single in six years (that's three years, insha'Allah, after I'm a practicing physician after residency), I do plan on becoming an adoptive mother. I've started looking up adoption options right now, because I understand it can take some time, just to know a little bit of background and what my future self will be getting into. I might adopt from the US as well as I may consider adopting from abroad. I'm also encouraged by seeing more writing by Muslims about adoption in Islam. God in the Qur'an mentions so often about caring for orphans...so insha'Allah, if I can't have children of my own, this is what I will do. This is my plan, and I pray that it will sustain me in the moments that I despair about being single!
But the main thing that I realized that I could do, through writing, through blogging, whatever, that I can help out other burgeoning Muslims or Muslims on the fringes. I realize that in MSAs, in a lot of the popular blogs that we read and other places, the Muslims we see are Super Muslims. At least that was my perception of it. At my MSA, the leaders were mainly people who were majoring in AAPTIS (Arabic, Armenian, Persian, Turkish and Islamic Studies) and were all planning to become scholars in their own right. Even if they weren't on the Islamic scholarship road, they were people who were well-read in scholarship and were taking advanced courses in Arabic, all things that I was miles away from doing as a Spanish and Cellular and Molecular Biology major. I didn't even have space in my schedule for introductory Arabic courses, something that I lamented.
But now, I'm finally okay with that.
I was surrounded by future Islamic scholars in college, yes, and people who were on their game in terms of their deen, but that didn't mean I had to be there, or that's what (or all) that I should aspire to.
No. I was an aspiring physician, and insha'Allah I'll be graduating from medical school this May. There are other worthy ways I can strive as a Muslim in this world without acquiring fluency in Arabic, without being able to read large sections of the Qur'an in Arabic, without becoming a scholar. And then some, but I don't think many of us who are striving in the beginning or reverting early on know that it's okay to strive for "less."
The fact is, we need people to be physicians, dentists, and lawyers...businesspeople, nurses, authors and actors...many other occupations that will not allow us to be mini-scholars and many worthy occupations that will require a lot of our time and energy during training. And these are worthy forms of worship as well. Yes, worship...ones career can be made an act of worship just like having sex with one's spouse can be an act of worship. Yes, sex. We pronounce bismillah before salat and bismillah before so much else in life, and especially if we have service careers and especially if we work in our career for the good of not only our ummah, but humankind in general...this is worship. This is greatness.
So, I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing now. I am going to blog. I am no scholar nor will I ever be, insha'Allah, but I am a regular, everyday Muslim who is striving in my own way, taking my own steps, realizing my own dreams, hopefully in accordance with what God wants from me. I believe I am realizing just one way to be Muslim that we have been blessed with the freedom (by God) to realize, and I want to be there with others who are along a similar path as me...I want to learn with others who are on a path similar as me.
For now, I'll do this through blogging. Insha'Allah, I could expand this...who knows better than God?
So, these are just some of my visions...things to keep myself busy in ways that I alhamdulillah have more in my control and insha'Allah will have more in my control for time to come. If I do end up marrying, then alhamdulillah, but I can't count on that or hope for that anymore without despairing too much for it to be helpful. It's time for me to move on...
New Center of Awesomeness continues!
I woke up from a series of weird dreams with a vision in my head. As I've gone throughout the day, that vision has grown in my mind and it's almost exploding in my chest right now! I had to write it down, but I end up gchatting with a friend about residency and the infamous (at least to us) rank list, and I didn't get to spend as much time with Martin Lings' Muhammad as I wanted to (and as I've wanted to for years, but always forget to pick a copy up when I have free time to read). Instead, I ended up doing a lot of facebook posting about the anthology, looking up details about the residency programs, and also looking up random things, like family medicine in Brazil and information on adopting children in Nigeria...
But my vision for my life from this moment onward is now in place!
I mean, huge disclaimer...I realize that the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a gley. I realize this. Yet, I'm the same 19-year-old girl who mapped out her entire four years at Michigan with about three different combinations of double majors and minors before deciding on my double major, and then stuck pretty closely to the schedule of courses I thought. I am not comfortable unless I plan out my life for a good chunk of time in the future, even knowing that plans are subject to change.
That's why the whole being single thing is so distressing to me. I'm like, what, I can't actually control that? I mean, of course I know I can't...but that really puts a monkey wrench in my emotional time and energy. It always comes when you least expect it, everyone says...thus throwing a monkey wrench into your other plans, too. But when you are looking to a relationship for half of your religion, let alone emotional fulfillment, companionship, partnership in life...and yet you have to keep on living with that being a grand question mark over your head, what do you do? You have to put the emotional energy you would normally put into stressing about that into something else!
Thus, my vision! Or visions, as they may be...
My career is going to be full, insha'Allah. I hope to become a family physician who has a maternal-child health practice and also participates in community health projects in my community, while having my foot occasionally abroad, later hoping to do some more work at the state or national level in terms of public health...but that later part is too far into the future. Like my said, if it were just for my career, my hands will be full, but my career is not enough to "belly-full" me, as my father would say...
I mean, alhamdulillah, it's quite a blessing to go into a career that I love so much and that I can use to serve others and will be part of my worship in the end, but I am more than medicine and public health.
I'm also writing, fiction and non-ficiton, evidenced by the fact that this exists! Alhamdulillah, the anthology is arrasando so far, even before it's available for purchase, but I also do eventually want to publish A Rose Much Desired as well as I want to work on a screenplay or two, one of course being "The Misadventures of Nisa," for which I'm writing music! I know residency will be busy, especially if I try to have community projects (required or not) alongside my work, but I want to keep writing part of my life and I always want to have at least one writing project going at any given time. Insha'Allah, I hope the anthology is just the first of more publications to come!
And of course, I wanted it all! My career, my greatest hobby (not to mention my other hobbies of singing Brazilian music, samba dancing and keeping in shape otherwise...), and a family! And yet, as I said before, while all things are blessings from Allah (swt), this is the thing that I can control the least. So I can't worry about that. So instead, if I feel like I have space still that I would prefer to fill with family life, I will fill with other things.
First of all, I do plan to eventually have a family, insha'Allah. If I am still single in six years (that's three years, insha'Allah, after I'm a practicing physician after residency), I do plan on becoming an adoptive mother. I've started looking up adoption options right now, because I understand it can take some time, just to know a little bit of background and what my future self will be getting into. I might adopt from the US as well as I may consider adopting from abroad. I'm also encouraged by seeing more writing by Muslims about adoption in Islam. God in the Qur'an mentions so often about caring for orphans...so insha'Allah, if I can't have children of my own, this is what I will do. This is my plan, and I pray that it will sustain me in the moments that I despair about being single!
But the main thing that I realized that I could do, through writing, through blogging, whatever, that I can help out other burgeoning Muslims or Muslims on the fringes. I realize that in MSAs, in a lot of the popular blogs that we read and other places, the Muslims we see are Super Muslims. At least that was my perception of it. At my MSA, the leaders were mainly people who were majoring in AAPTIS (Arabic, Armenian, Persian, Turkish and Islamic Studies) and were all planning to become scholars in their own right. Even if they weren't on the Islamic scholarship road, they were people who were well-read in scholarship and were taking advanced courses in Arabic, all things that I was miles away from doing as a Spanish and Cellular and Molecular Biology major. I didn't even have space in my schedule for introductory Arabic courses, something that I lamented.
But now, I'm finally okay with that.
I was surrounded by future Islamic scholars in college, yes, and people who were on their game in terms of their deen, but that didn't mean I had to be there, or that's what (or all) that I should aspire to.
No. I was an aspiring physician, and insha'Allah I'll be graduating from medical school this May. There are other worthy ways I can strive as a Muslim in this world without acquiring fluency in Arabic, without being able to read large sections of the Qur'an in Arabic, without becoming a scholar. And then some, but I don't think many of us who are striving in the beginning or reverting early on know that it's okay to strive for "less."
The fact is, we need people to be physicians, dentists, and lawyers...businesspeople, nurses, authors and actors...many other occupations that will not allow us to be mini-scholars and many worthy occupations that will require a lot of our time and energy during training. And these are worthy forms of worship as well. Yes, worship...ones career can be made an act of worship just like having sex with one's spouse can be an act of worship. Yes, sex. We pronounce bismillah before salat and bismillah before so much else in life, and especially if we have service careers and especially if we work in our career for the good of not only our ummah, but humankind in general...this is worship. This is greatness.
So, I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing now. I am going to blog. I am no scholar nor will I ever be, insha'Allah, but I am a regular, everyday Muslim who is striving in my own way, taking my own steps, realizing my own dreams, hopefully in accordance with what God wants from me. I believe I am realizing just one way to be Muslim that we have been blessed with the freedom (by God) to realize, and I want to be there with others who are along a similar path as me...I want to learn with others who are on a path similar as me.
For now, I'll do this through blogging. Insha'Allah, I could expand this...who knows better than God?
So, these are just some of my visions...things to keep myself busy in ways that I alhamdulillah have more in my control and insha'Allah will have more in my control for time to come. If I do end up marrying, then alhamdulillah, but I can't count on that or hope for that anymore without despairing too much for it to be helpful. It's time for me to move on...
New Center of Awesomeness continues!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Joy
As salaam alaikum,
There are moments when I just feel absolute joy, like life could not get any better than that moment. I felt that while on the interview trail, several times...when I walked the beach in Ventura, when I woke up in the morning to "Lift Up Your Hands to the Lord" by Fred Hammond before my interview in Rochester, NY, while watching the plane descend into the most beautiful cumulus clouds as "On the Wings of Love" by Jeffrey Osborne played on my iPod...and so many other moments now forgotten.
I felt the same way as my cousin pulled the blanket from on top of the little car seat and I met my baby cousin for the first time. I looked at her face and gasped with delight, and the little thing raised her eyebrows as she saw my face and a curious smile spread across her face. My cousin told me I could take her out of her seat, and of course I could...I don't know what I was thinking! As I struggled with the car seat, I was reminded that, though I've by now examined tens of babies in pediatrics and family medicine rotations and have delivered maybe 30, I have little experience with babies outside of the medical environment, in their normal habitat. I eventually got her out of the seat through trial and error, and picked her up.
Different from my first exposure to babies at my grandmother and aunt's Islamic School and Day Care, I have since learned how to pick babies up, how to hold them, how to support their head, how to carry them...all from working with so many in medical school. But I think I can count the number of times I've changed a diaper or fed a baby with a bottle still with one hand. But I held her and bounced her and kissed her on the forehead and she smiled and cooed in glee as this new, intriguing person held her in her arms.
Somewhere, my cousin has a picture of me that she took holding the baby, and the look on my face in that picture...I've never seen myself so happy.
I knew this little baby when she was just a concept in her parents' minds. In my life, I've never met a more desired baby, named long before she was viable outside of the womb. She was dressed like a princess, wearing a camouflage bib to match the fatigues her father and older brother were wearing as they graced their presence at an Air Force holiday party. I knew this baby when she was just a desire, a hope, a wish, a prayer, and here she was, a little thing with no idea yet how much she is loved by so many.
So how could I be less than smiling so much when I held her, saw her, heard her little voice for the first time, smelled her, smoothed her hair, wiped the slob from her mouth, played with her little feet, did the Babinski reflex, the grasping reflex and the extinguishing rooting reflex just for fun...
How could I see her as less than amazing? If I like looking at buds on trees in the spring time and admire them for their enormous potential to become the leaves that shade me in the summer, how could I not admire this bebezinha so much for all the potential she carries, unknown to all of us but God in the end.
Sweet, precious, little baby girl in her tutu and lacy socks, her tights with her flat back-to-sleep head that I assured my cousins would go away in time...
I don't think I have ever been happier than in that moment that I met this baby for the first time.
And to know that there will be many more times in my life that will be happier than this, many more babies that will bring me joy just to be in their presence, many more children and adults that will make me happy, many more times of happiness that I will find in myself and in life around me, from small mammals to inanimate objects...
I just have to praise God for the ability to feel so much joy, and the clarity of mind to recognize this joy while filtering out that nay-saying voice that wants me to feel sorrow for what I don't have, that nay-saying voice that wants me to lean more heavily on may not than the may possibilities of my life and to mourn the loss of what I have not yet lost and may never lose.
God, continue to guide me to the good things in this life, as you have already given me so much good without me having to ask for it, without my praying to maintain it, without my foresight to desire it, with my continued ignorance of how good this good is...
Ameen.
There are moments when I just feel absolute joy, like life could not get any better than that moment. I felt that while on the interview trail, several times...when I walked the beach in Ventura, when I woke up in the morning to "Lift Up Your Hands to the Lord" by Fred Hammond before my interview in Rochester, NY, while watching the plane descend into the most beautiful cumulus clouds as "On the Wings of Love" by Jeffrey Osborne played on my iPod...and so many other moments now forgotten.
I felt the same way as my cousin pulled the blanket from on top of the little car seat and I met my baby cousin for the first time. I looked at her face and gasped with delight, and the little thing raised her eyebrows as she saw my face and a curious smile spread across her face. My cousin told me I could take her out of her seat, and of course I could...I don't know what I was thinking! As I struggled with the car seat, I was reminded that, though I've by now examined tens of babies in pediatrics and family medicine rotations and have delivered maybe 30, I have little experience with babies outside of the medical environment, in their normal habitat. I eventually got her out of the seat through trial and error, and picked her up.
Different from my first exposure to babies at my grandmother and aunt's Islamic School and Day Care, I have since learned how to pick babies up, how to hold them, how to support their head, how to carry them...all from working with so many in medical school. But I think I can count the number of times I've changed a diaper or fed a baby with a bottle still with one hand. But I held her and bounced her and kissed her on the forehead and she smiled and cooed in glee as this new, intriguing person held her in her arms.
Somewhere, my cousin has a picture of me that she took holding the baby, and the look on my face in that picture...I've never seen myself so happy.
I knew this little baby when she was just a concept in her parents' minds. In my life, I've never met a more desired baby, named long before she was viable outside of the womb. She was dressed like a princess, wearing a camouflage bib to match the fatigues her father and older brother were wearing as they graced their presence at an Air Force holiday party. I knew this baby when she was just a desire, a hope, a wish, a prayer, and here she was, a little thing with no idea yet how much she is loved by so many.
So how could I be less than smiling so much when I held her, saw her, heard her little voice for the first time, smelled her, smoothed her hair, wiped the slob from her mouth, played with her little feet, did the Babinski reflex, the grasping reflex and the extinguishing rooting reflex just for fun...
How could I see her as less than amazing? If I like looking at buds on trees in the spring time and admire them for their enormous potential to become the leaves that shade me in the summer, how could I not admire this bebezinha so much for all the potential she carries, unknown to all of us but God in the end.
Sweet, precious, little baby girl in her tutu and lacy socks, her tights with her flat back-to-sleep head that I assured my cousins would go away in time...
I don't think I have ever been happier than in that moment that I met this baby for the first time.
And to know that there will be many more times in my life that will be happier than this, many more babies that will bring me joy just to be in their presence, many more children and adults that will make me happy, many more times of happiness that I will find in myself and in life around me, from small mammals to inanimate objects...
I just have to praise God for the ability to feel so much joy, and the clarity of mind to recognize this joy while filtering out that nay-saying voice that wants me to feel sorrow for what I don't have, that nay-saying voice that wants me to lean more heavily on may not than the may possibilities of my life and to mourn the loss of what I have not yet lost and may never lose.
God, continue to guide me to the good things in this life, as you have already given me so much good without me having to ask for it, without my praying to maintain it, without my foresight to desire it, with my continued ignorance of how good this good is...
Ameen.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Delaying Motherhood for Education
As salaam alaikum,
I read this line in this article a few days ago, and I was livid!
Okay...maybe not livid, but offended, maybe? Put-off? I'm struggling to find the word that correctly describes the sentiment...irritated?
Anyway, here's the article: Fertility Math? Most Women Flunk, survey finds.
The article discusses that most women are not aware that your fertility drops markedly between the ages of 30 and 40, and they often do not seek fertility specialists until too late and then bear the frustrations of fertility treatments. Since I've been in medical school (and I think before this), this was not news to me. I knew that women had a narrow reproductive window between puberty and menopause. In medical school, I was told by one of my (female) professors that since the majority of the women in the class were over 23, we had passed the optimum age of childbearing. I was aware that amniocentesis becomes indicated for women at the age of 35, the age at which your risk of miscarriage with amniocentesis becomes equal to your risk of having a child with Trisomy 21 (Down's syndrome).
And I remember seeing the graphs showing the exponential increase in risk of having a child with Down's contrasted with the exponential decrease in a woman's fertility.
And I have come into my womanhood in a veritable state of horror as I watched each year pass...23, 24, 25, 26...
I will have celebrated five birthdays in medical school. I was a young, nubile 22 when I started, and I will be a nubile though not-as-young 27 when I graduate. I'd hoped that I would meet someone during medical school. And try as I might to secure something for myself, I was unable to.
And then articles like this rub salt into my wounds:
DING DING DING! You guessed it, lack of a partner!
And I'm not sure if it was my choice, rightfully, to postpone children in order to pursue my education or my career. It's not like eligible bachelors have been knocking on my door. Without griping about the quality of men--which I won't, because, genuinely, there are good men out there--suffice it to say that a man who fits into my life hasn't come along yet. Could it be because I've spent four years of college, four years of medical school and one year of public health school pursuing my education and am about to, insha'Allah, spend 3 years in residency, working towards my career?
I mean, because you could put it that way. If I had at least stopped in college and got a job, maybe it would have been easier for a man to fit into my life. Now, with all of the years of professional school, I'll have more letters behind my name than I'll have a chance to have children because my fertility window is narrowing...
I'm not sure if that's the message they're going for, but really, I think for most women, it's more complicated than a choice to have children earlier.
Married or otherwise partnered women who want to have children someday and are in their 20s and wait until their mid-to-late 30s to start trying to have children? Okay, maybe they are ones who you should tell, start having babies now...and even then, I don't know anyone like that. Most women who I know who are having children later are doing so because they were married or partnered later in life. I'm not yet 27, but I'm almost 27. That could be me!
I just get...defensive, yes, that's the word I'm looking for! ...I get defensive reading these things. No, I am not delaying childbearing to my mid-30s because of my career. I know the biology of fertility very well and, yes, with a family history of endometriosis and other unforeseeable elements that could limit my fertility, I want to have children sooner rather than later as will make sense in whatever my future relationship is. Don't wave a finger at me, faulting me for my later childbearing...
Because, for that matter, I could be a mother now. I almost had a high school boyfriend who would have been my first, the way he was interested in me, if I had not put him down because (1) I wanted to come into my Muslim identity and I didn't think he'd be supportive and (2) I wanted to focus on my studies. I was a sophomore in high school when we exchanged letters, back and forth, in which he told me I was the one. His touch was tempting, but I knew Islam was the way I wanted to live and I knew I wanted to go to college. There would be more boys later.
He was my last chance...for early childbearing. Since then, I've come into Islam and am coming into my own, graduated from college, completed my MPH and insha'Allah will graduate medical school. He graduated from college, too, and now has a toddler with a woman who would not have fertility problems because she was in her 20s. I had no other potential suitors until 25, but even then, I had adopted the "no children until 2015" model, the year I would insha'Allah graduate residency.
What do I say to this? Yes! Delay children, for sure, for education. Too many studies, here and abroad, point to children and families thriving more the more educated mom is. Can you come back and continue education after children? Yes! But should you rush into some relationship for the purpose of having children? No!
And I know, I know...the article is not calling on women to do that. According to the survey, women really do not know that their fertility declines so much as they age. Fair. Let them know that. But the tone just sounds like it's pooh pooing women for delaying motherhood for education or career.
My position? Do what makes sense! As I have been exploring, we all find our mates at different times in life. Those of us who are married or partnered can make a choice about when to have children that is best for the pair. And we should not feel guilty if the desire for children was not great in our lives and then becomes stronger as we age. Those of us who are unmarried and single do not have that luxury, and we should not feel bullied, guilted or pressured into settling for men who do not make sense in our lives for the tick-tocking of a biological clock. As a Muslim, I know that God will provide.
Even if I were to conceive my first child at 39, with a 5% chance each month of getting pregnant and with a higher risk of Down's Syndrome, God will provide because such has been the substance of my prayers.
...
That being said, women, be smart! Especially "educated" women, educate yourself about your body, your fertility, so you know the risks of choosing to have a child when.
I read this line in this article a few days ago, and I was livid!
Okay...maybe not livid, but offended, maybe? Put-off? I'm struggling to find the word that correctly describes the sentiment...irritated?
Anyway, here's the article: Fertility Math? Most Women Flunk, survey finds.
The article discusses that most women are not aware that your fertility drops markedly between the ages of 30 and 40, and they often do not seek fertility specialists until too late and then bear the frustrations of fertility treatments. Since I've been in medical school (and I think before this), this was not news to me. I knew that women had a narrow reproductive window between puberty and menopause. In medical school, I was told by one of my (female) professors that since the majority of the women in the class were over 23, we had passed the optimum age of childbearing. I was aware that amniocentesis becomes indicated for women at the age of 35, the age at which your risk of miscarriage with amniocentesis becomes equal to your risk of having a child with Trisomy 21 (Down's syndrome).
And I remember seeing the graphs showing the exponential increase in risk of having a child with Down's contrasted with the exponential decrease in a woman's fertility.
And I have come into my womanhood in a veritable state of horror as I watched each year pass...23, 24, 25, 26...
I will have celebrated five birthdays in medical school. I was a young, nubile 22 when I started, and I will be a nubile though not-as-young 27 when I graduate. I'd hoped that I would meet someone during medical school. And try as I might to secure something for myself, I was unable to.
And then articles like this rub salt into my wounds:
The trouble is, such thinking can cheat a woman out of her options, Collura says. It’s one thing to postpone children in order to pursue education or a career, fully knowing it might be more difficult to get pregnant later. It’s another thing to be surprised by infertility.So, I'm in that age group where this woman tells us to start having babies now. I don't know about other women in the 25-34 demographic (now that I'm no longer in the 15-24 demographic for nearly two years now...), but not all of us are in the position to conceive babies nor raise those babies in stable homes because of...
“This is not about empowering women and women’s rights,” she says. “This is about science and biology 101.”
That is precisely Holly Finn’s point. She wishes she had realized earlier the effects that endometriosis and age might have on her ability to conceive. If she had her way, she’d tell women ages 26 to 34 one thing: "Start having babies now."
DING DING DING! You guessed it, lack of a partner!
And I'm not sure if it was my choice, rightfully, to postpone children in order to pursue my education or my career. It's not like eligible bachelors have been knocking on my door. Without griping about the quality of men--which I won't, because, genuinely, there are good men out there--suffice it to say that a man who fits into my life hasn't come along yet. Could it be because I've spent four years of college, four years of medical school and one year of public health school pursuing my education and am about to, insha'Allah, spend 3 years in residency, working towards my career?
I mean, because you could put it that way. If I had at least stopped in college and got a job, maybe it would have been easier for a man to fit into my life. Now, with all of the years of professional school, I'll have more letters behind my name than I'll have a chance to have children because my fertility window is narrowing...
I'm not sure if that's the message they're going for, but really, I think for most women, it's more complicated than a choice to have children earlier.
Married or otherwise partnered women who want to have children someday and are in their 20s and wait until their mid-to-late 30s to start trying to have children? Okay, maybe they are ones who you should tell, start having babies now...and even then, I don't know anyone like that. Most women who I know who are having children later are doing so because they were married or partnered later in life. I'm not yet 27, but I'm almost 27. That could be me!
I just get...defensive, yes, that's the word I'm looking for! ...I get defensive reading these things. No, I am not delaying childbearing to my mid-30s because of my career. I know the biology of fertility very well and, yes, with a family history of endometriosis and other unforeseeable elements that could limit my fertility, I want to have children sooner rather than later as will make sense in whatever my future relationship is. Don't wave a finger at me, faulting me for my later childbearing...
Because, for that matter, I could be a mother now. I almost had a high school boyfriend who would have been my first, the way he was interested in me, if I had not put him down because (1) I wanted to come into my Muslim identity and I didn't think he'd be supportive and (2) I wanted to focus on my studies. I was a sophomore in high school when we exchanged letters, back and forth, in which he told me I was the one. His touch was tempting, but I knew Islam was the way I wanted to live and I knew I wanted to go to college. There would be more boys later.
He was my last chance...for early childbearing. Since then, I've come into Islam and am coming into my own, graduated from college, completed my MPH and insha'Allah will graduate medical school. He graduated from college, too, and now has a toddler with a woman who would not have fertility problems because she was in her 20s. I had no other potential suitors until 25, but even then, I had adopted the "no children until 2015" model, the year I would insha'Allah graduate residency.
What do I say to this? Yes! Delay children, for sure, for education. Too many studies, here and abroad, point to children and families thriving more the more educated mom is. Can you come back and continue education after children? Yes! But should you rush into some relationship for the purpose of having children? No!
And I know, I know...the article is not calling on women to do that. According to the survey, women really do not know that their fertility declines so much as they age. Fair. Let them know that. But the tone just sounds like it's pooh pooing women for delaying motherhood for education or career.
My position? Do what makes sense! As I have been exploring, we all find our mates at different times in life. Those of us who are married or partnered can make a choice about when to have children that is best for the pair. And we should not feel guilty if the desire for children was not great in our lives and then becomes stronger as we age. Those of us who are unmarried and single do not have that luxury, and we should not feel bullied, guilted or pressured into settling for men who do not make sense in our lives for the tick-tocking of a biological clock. As a Muslim, I know that God will provide.
Even if I were to conceive my first child at 39, with a 5% chance each month of getting pregnant and with a higher risk of Down's Syndrome, God will provide because such has been the substance of my prayers.
...
That being said, women, be smart! Especially "educated" women, educate yourself about your body, your fertility, so you know the risks of choosing to have a child when.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Single Invisible Muslimah, Part II
As salaam alaikum,
Just a reminder of the backdrop of this piece:
"[...] as a community, we are so focused on grooming our women to be wives and mothers that we lose sight of the fact that this is not even our number one role.
"Servitude to Allah (swt) is our number one role. We need to use what He has given us, the means that we have at the moment we have, to worship Him in the best of ways." - Wifehood and Motherhood not only ways to paradise.
[CONTINUED]
Through much of this time, I have lamented being single. Through much of those phases of my life, there was some sort of emotional drama going on where I was depressed for some reason or another, or longing, or something. I chose medicine because I saw it as a most excellent way to serve God, to aid my fellow human beings through life (also service to God), to use some of the gifts that God has given me (academic and intellectual prowess with the love of science) and to have financial stability in this life. At some point, maybe not recorded in one of my many journals, I made this definitive decision as my form of worship outside of family life.
I grew up taking marriage and children for granted. As a three year old, I was asked if I wanted to learn how to drive. I said, nope, the daddy (my husband) will drive me. By fifteen, however, I dismissed that as I got behind the wheel of a car for the first time to practice in the parking lot of the local movie theater and as I navigated the winding roads of Ann Arbor. Even then, though, I just assumed that I would marry and have children someday. I didn't doubt it. My biggest worry at fifteen was that no boys that I wanted to be interested in me were interested in me at the time, but I didn't worry about never marrying.
I'm not sure when that started. I think it was in medical school, as I found myself upon the age that I imagined I would meet my husband and it didn't happen. Compound that with my trying to do things the halal way and not knowing how to go about it, the small pool of Muslim men and beginning to realize that my identity and my standards were more complex than most...and I continued to age...
And thus it has been. I think college was marked by wanting MQ specifically, and I didn't worry so much about being single. I think even more than being lonely, I began to doubt that I would find someone because of the different person I was becoming...or at the very least I realized that the road was going to be harder...
The problem I realize is that I never wanted my life in medicine to be the main dish. I took forming a family of my own for granted. I didn't even think about it. Everyone in my family had at least one child and had at one point been married (when I was young) (a point I haven't thought about, actually, in a while), and all of my friends obviously were family for their parent(s). Until and after I was married and started a family, I would become a physician and make that a mode of worship. I always assumed it would happen. Most people do. Who doesn't?
Those for whom it starts to take longer, like me. Those who are exposed to stories of women who "never." (There are no popular stories about men who never marry, although they are certainly out there and not all gay.) When I came into Islam and began hearing stories of Muslim women who never marry, then experience negated my somewhat naive belief that Muslims disregarded ethnicity as an absolute when choosing spouses in following the Qur'an and Sunnah (hahahahahahahaha!), then rereading the monthly issue of Essence or Ebony talking about the 74% of unmarried black women over the age of 25, the difficulties of professional black women to marry, the black men in jail...and putting those together, that black Muslim men prefer women who can speak Arabic, thus leaving many black Muslimahs behind, the shortage of black Muslim men, issues with Muslim men of quality in general, let alone black Muslims...
And this is where my "never" mentality came from. This is one of the ways that Satan can get me...whipping me into despair, catching me when I'm vulnerable and making me feel hopeless when in fact God is blessing me beyond measure.
Along with my delving into Islam and discovering some of the ugly realities about Muslims in America and the world at large (all of this done after 9/11, so I was already aware of some ugly realities), I adopted some maladaptive beliefs. I read about Jannah at the feet of mothers and fortified my lifelong interest in (or more aptly expectation of) having a family of my own with the belief that it was the most worthy thing that human beings can do.
Not just women, but men, too. Men, of course, can form families at any time. If men take care of themselves and are otherwise already able (thus barring primary or unforeseen secondary infertility), they can father children until they are elderly. We women have the window...the window I didn't start worrying about until I was 22 and when I was 23 when my endocrinology professor informed us that we had already passed the optimal age of childbearing (why would you tell women in medicine that, especially young, formative women?).
The most noble, the most honored thing for us to do, I believed was to marry and have children, raising those children in Islam. I began to believe that everything else paled in comparison. What had been a desire for companionship that I've had since I was that 12-year-old girl aspiring to go to graduate school had become a matter of religious importance, absently, combined with an unchecked desire that evolved into desperation because I thought I was entitled to do so.
And it all started with taking marriage and family for granted.
I have not loved the stage that I am in. That has to change.
If I can love the small sparrows that hop about on two stick feet, perch on branches as I walk to class and rub there beaks against the branch, cocking their heads from this side to that to gain the fabled birds-eye view they need to take flight...why can I not love the more complex and multifaceted entity which is my life? They are both God's creation, carefully, painstakingly and purposefully crafted into a greatness that is beyond our comprehension. But this bird is one of many that is hatched and dies several times over in my lifetime, whose instincts are simple, whose body is small and energy is compact. If I love so many other things to this detail about creation, why not love my life, where I am now, as I loved my childhood. As I've always loved being black. As I love being Nigerian. As I love being in medicine. As I love family medicine. As I love my classmates. As I love my hair. As I love my face. As I love my skin. As I've grown to love my body. As I love my writing. As I love my voice. As I love my eyes. As I love my feet. As I love my mother. As I love my father. As I love our family history. As I love my brother. As I love my relationship with my brother. As I love my grandparents. As I love my cousins, all hundreds of them. As I love the character that came out of our familial hardship.
As I love that plaintive feeling that comes from lyrical memories of trial, longing and pain. As I love soul and samba music.
God knows I will love when I am married, and I will love each moment of life with my children. Those two will be the greatest love I'll ever know, I know it. I feel it in me. God made me a nurtuerer, and it's true for my patients, family and friends and it will be true of my family. I am going to be the best wife and mother I can imagine, insha'Allah.
But that's not my stage right now, and it's not my place to throw myself into that, to love that just yet. It will just leave me longing, as one who fasts the day and thinks too much of iftar longs painfully for that food.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Just a reminder of the backdrop of this piece:
"[...] as a community, we are so focused on grooming our women to be wives and mothers that we lose sight of the fact that this is not even our number one role.
"Servitude to Allah (swt) is our number one role. We need to use what He has given us, the means that we have at the moment we have, to worship Him in the best of ways." - Wifehood and Motherhood not only ways to paradise.
[CONTINUED]
Through much of this time, I have lamented being single. Through much of those phases of my life, there was some sort of emotional drama going on where I was depressed for some reason or another, or longing, or something. I chose medicine because I saw it as a most excellent way to serve God, to aid my fellow human beings through life (also service to God), to use some of the gifts that God has given me (academic and intellectual prowess with the love of science) and to have financial stability in this life. At some point, maybe not recorded in one of my many journals, I made this definitive decision as my form of worship outside of family life.
I grew up taking marriage and children for granted. As a three year old, I was asked if I wanted to learn how to drive. I said, nope, the daddy (my husband) will drive me. By fifteen, however, I dismissed that as I got behind the wheel of a car for the first time to practice in the parking lot of the local movie theater and as I navigated the winding roads of Ann Arbor. Even then, though, I just assumed that I would marry and have children someday. I didn't doubt it. My biggest worry at fifteen was that no boys that I wanted to be interested in me were interested in me at the time, but I didn't worry about never marrying.
I'm not sure when that started. I think it was in medical school, as I found myself upon the age that I imagined I would meet my husband and it didn't happen. Compound that with my trying to do things the halal way and not knowing how to go about it, the small pool of Muslim men and beginning to realize that my identity and my standards were more complex than most...and I continued to age...
And thus it has been. I think college was marked by wanting MQ specifically, and I didn't worry so much about being single. I think even more than being lonely, I began to doubt that I would find someone because of the different person I was becoming...or at the very least I realized that the road was going to be harder...
The problem I realize is that I never wanted my life in medicine to be the main dish. I took forming a family of my own for granted. I didn't even think about it. Everyone in my family had at least one child and had at one point been married (when I was young) (a point I haven't thought about, actually, in a while), and all of my friends obviously were family for their parent(s). Until and after I was married and started a family, I would become a physician and make that a mode of worship. I always assumed it would happen. Most people do. Who doesn't?
Those for whom it starts to take longer, like me. Those who are exposed to stories of women who "never." (There are no popular stories about men who never marry, although they are certainly out there and not all gay.) When I came into Islam and began hearing stories of Muslim women who never marry, then experience negated my somewhat naive belief that Muslims disregarded ethnicity as an absolute when choosing spouses in following the Qur'an and Sunnah (hahahahahahahaha!), then rereading the monthly issue of Essence or Ebony talking about the 74% of unmarried black women over the age of 25, the difficulties of professional black women to marry, the black men in jail...and putting those together, that black Muslim men prefer women who can speak Arabic, thus leaving many black Muslimahs behind, the shortage of black Muslim men, issues with Muslim men of quality in general, let alone black Muslims...
And this is where my "never" mentality came from. This is one of the ways that Satan can get me...whipping me into despair, catching me when I'm vulnerable and making me feel hopeless when in fact God is blessing me beyond measure.
Along with my delving into Islam and discovering some of the ugly realities about Muslims in America and the world at large (all of this done after 9/11, so I was already aware of some ugly realities), I adopted some maladaptive beliefs. I read about Jannah at the feet of mothers and fortified my lifelong interest in (or more aptly expectation of) having a family of my own with the belief that it was the most worthy thing that human beings can do.
Not just women, but men, too. Men, of course, can form families at any time. If men take care of themselves and are otherwise already able (thus barring primary or unforeseen secondary infertility), they can father children until they are elderly. We women have the window...the window I didn't start worrying about until I was 22 and when I was 23 when my endocrinology professor informed us that we had already passed the optimal age of childbearing (why would you tell women in medicine that, especially young, formative women?).
The most noble, the most honored thing for us to do, I believed was to marry and have children, raising those children in Islam. I began to believe that everything else paled in comparison. What had been a desire for companionship that I've had since I was that 12-year-old girl aspiring to go to graduate school had become a matter of religious importance, absently, combined with an unchecked desire that evolved into desperation because I thought I was entitled to do so.
And it all started with taking marriage and family for granted.
I have not loved the stage that I am in. That has to change.
If I can love the small sparrows that hop about on two stick feet, perch on branches as I walk to class and rub there beaks against the branch, cocking their heads from this side to that to gain the fabled birds-eye view they need to take flight...why can I not love the more complex and multifaceted entity which is my life? They are both God's creation, carefully, painstakingly and purposefully crafted into a greatness that is beyond our comprehension. But this bird is one of many that is hatched and dies several times over in my lifetime, whose instincts are simple, whose body is small and energy is compact. If I love so many other things to this detail about creation, why not love my life, where I am now, as I loved my childhood. As I've always loved being black. As I love being Nigerian. As I love being in medicine. As I love family medicine. As I love my classmates. As I love my hair. As I love my face. As I love my skin. As I've grown to love my body. As I love my writing. As I love my voice. As I love my eyes. As I love my feet. As I love my mother. As I love my father. As I love our family history. As I love my brother. As I love my relationship with my brother. As I love my grandparents. As I love my cousins, all hundreds of them. As I love the character that came out of our familial hardship.
As I love that plaintive feeling that comes from lyrical memories of trial, longing and pain. As I love soul and samba music.
God knows I will love when I am married, and I will love each moment of life with my children. Those two will be the greatest love I'll ever know, I know it. I feel it in me. God made me a nurtuerer, and it's true for my patients, family and friends and it will be true of my family. I am going to be the best wife and mother I can imagine, insha'Allah.
But that's not my stage right now, and it's not my place to throw myself into that, to love that just yet. It will just leave me longing, as one who fasts the day and thinks too much of iftar longs painfully for that food.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Single Invisible Muslimah, Part I
As salaam alaikum,
I don't know how I missed this article at AltMuslimah...it's totally what I needed to read, always.
"[...] as a community, we are so focused on grooming our women to be wives and mothers that we lose sight of the fact that this is not even our number one role.
"Servitude to Allah (swt) is our number one role. We need to use what He has given us, the means that we have at the moment we have, to worship Him in the best of ways."
Preach it, Sister! See the full article here: Wifehood and Motherhood not only ways to paradise.
This paragraph was also encouraging:
"God, in His Wisdom, has created each one of us differently and in different circumstances. Some recognize this, love any stage they are in, and develop their abilities to the fullest. Let us, too, use the time and abilities God has given us to maximize our worship to Him and work for the betterment of society and humanity as a whole. If wifehood or motherhood comes in the process, then at least we were using all of our ability to worship Him before it came and can continue to use the training and stamina we gained before marriage to worship Him with excellence once it comes along."
Ameen, sis!
The article starts out with a Muslimah aimlessly making her way through college, really just buying time until she finds a husband and marries so she can have children. In my heart of hearts, I felt like this was me.
No one else sees me this way, and when I talk this way, it seems incongruous with who I actually am.
I am the 12-year-old girl who helped her mother copy articles for her Auntie Florence's dissertation in Nigeria and aspired someday to attend graduate school. I am the 12-year-old girl that, in researching careers, was choosing not only between medicine and architecture, but considered specifically the specialty of OB/GYN. I am the 13-year-old girl who took two math classes in middle school so she could be in the advanced science-math track. I am the 15-year-old girl who participated in a conference and initiative to try to address the achievement gap with black American students. I am the 18-year-old girl who graduated in the top 5% of her high school class after taking 7 AP tests, all 4s and 5s, and had gotten into all of the colleges she applied to with a full tuition scholarship to the one she would eventually attend. I am the 17-year-old girl who definitively embraced Islam and decided to become more practicing once in college.
I am the 18-year-old girl who entered college toying with the idea of becoming an MD/PhD, focusing on genetics. I am the 18-year-old girl who fasted Ramadan for the first time. I am the 19-year-old girl that started to develop her social consciousness and the idea of entering medicine as a service career, serving Allah (swt) through serving fellow human being. I am the 19-year-old girl who found a dream medical school and began to develop myself in college to be able to gain admission there. I am the 19-year-old girl who decided to double major in Cellular and Molecular biology and Spanish. I am the 20-year-old girl who juggled her double major, working in the lab, volunteering in the Children's hospital, tutoring students in Spanish and helping Latino children and adults increase their literacy all the while delving into Islam head-first. I am the 21-year-old girl who began wearing the khimar, traveled abroad for the first time and applied to medical school all in the same year. I am the 22-year-old girl who graduated with a 3.9 and accepted admission at Harvard Medical School with aspirations to attain her MPH.
I am the 22-year-old woman who made the very hard decision to shed the khimar and find alternative ways to assume her Muslim identity.
I am the 22-year-old girl who thrived upon entering medical school. I am the 22-year-old girl who started writing her first novel, A Rose Much Desired, during anatomy class, where she sawed off a human leg. I am the 22-year-old girl who aspired to publish at least one work while in medical school. I am the 23-year-old girl who wrote her first story to be published, insha'Allah, which was renamed "The Hybrid Dance." I am the 23-year-old girl who co-directed a cultural show with her classmates that celebrated the African Diaspora and was musical director for her second year show, realizing the dreams of performance that she never allowed herself while studying through college. I am the 24-year-old woman who studied for and conquered USMLE Step 1. I am the 24-year-old woman who decided not to miss Ramadan because of tough coursework and fasted successfully through her OB/GYN rotation and still got her desired grade. I am the 25-year-old woman who survived third year of medical school. I am the 25-year-old woman who fell in love with family medicine. I am the 25-year-old woman who realized her aspiration and matriculated into the school of public health, studying family and community health and maternal child health. I am the 26-year-old woman who was an intern for a project to find solutions for homelessness of transition-age youth in Massachusetts. I am the 26-year-old woman who is applying to residency and interviewing across the country as I type this.
I am the 26-year-old woman who has made mistakes in the course of life but always has her home in Islam, alhamdulillah.
None of this is the mark of a woman who has been ambling through life, aimlessly waiting for her husband to come along. No. I don't know why I though that.
I don't generally like to lay out my life in this way, but for my own purposes, I had to. I had to slap myself in the face and see, in fact, that I've made some very purposeful decisions in my life, academic and leisure and otherwise, to achieve my goals.
As the quote above says so nicely, we are created differently and we are born into different circumstances. Some of us recognize this and love the stage we are in and develop our capabilities to the fullest. I think I recognize that we are born into different circumstances and I have developed my capabilities. What has not happened is that I have not loved the stage I am in.
I was constantly trying to be something else, be somewhere else. Thus the movement of I am more myself now than I have ever been.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
I don't know how I missed this article at AltMuslimah...it's totally what I needed to read, always.
"[...] as a community, we are so focused on grooming our women to be wives and mothers that we lose sight of the fact that this is not even our number one role.
"Servitude to Allah (swt) is our number one role. We need to use what He has given us, the means that we have at the moment we have, to worship Him in the best of ways."
Preach it, Sister! See the full article here: Wifehood and Motherhood not only ways to paradise.
This paragraph was also encouraging:
"God, in His Wisdom, has created each one of us differently and in different circumstances. Some recognize this, love any stage they are in, and develop their abilities to the fullest. Let us, too, use the time and abilities God has given us to maximize our worship to Him and work for the betterment of society and humanity as a whole. If wifehood or motherhood comes in the process, then at least we were using all of our ability to worship Him before it came and can continue to use the training and stamina we gained before marriage to worship Him with excellence once it comes along."
Ameen, sis!
The article starts out with a Muslimah aimlessly making her way through college, really just buying time until she finds a husband and marries so she can have children. In my heart of hearts, I felt like this was me.
No one else sees me this way, and when I talk this way, it seems incongruous with who I actually am.
I am the 12-year-old girl who helped her mother copy articles for her Auntie Florence's dissertation in Nigeria and aspired someday to attend graduate school. I am the 12-year-old girl that, in researching careers, was choosing not only between medicine and architecture, but considered specifically the specialty of OB/GYN. I am the 13-year-old girl who took two math classes in middle school so she could be in the advanced science-math track. I am the 15-year-old girl who participated in a conference and initiative to try to address the achievement gap with black American students. I am the 18-year-old girl who graduated in the top 5% of her high school class after taking 7 AP tests, all 4s and 5s, and had gotten into all of the colleges she applied to with a full tuition scholarship to the one she would eventually attend. I am the 17-year-old girl who definitively embraced Islam and decided to become more practicing once in college.
I am the 18-year-old girl who entered college toying with the idea of becoming an MD/PhD, focusing on genetics. I am the 18-year-old girl who fasted Ramadan for the first time. I am the 19-year-old girl that started to develop her social consciousness and the idea of entering medicine as a service career, serving Allah (swt) through serving fellow human being. I am the 19-year-old girl who found a dream medical school and began to develop myself in college to be able to gain admission there. I am the 19-year-old girl who decided to double major in Cellular and Molecular biology and Spanish. I am the 20-year-old girl who juggled her double major, working in the lab, volunteering in the Children's hospital, tutoring students in Spanish and helping Latino children and adults increase their literacy all the while delving into Islam head-first. I am the 21-year-old girl who began wearing the khimar, traveled abroad for the first time and applied to medical school all in the same year. I am the 22-year-old girl who graduated with a 3.9 and accepted admission at Harvard Medical School with aspirations to attain her MPH.
I am the 22-year-old woman who made the very hard decision to shed the khimar and find alternative ways to assume her Muslim identity.
I am the 22-year-old girl who thrived upon entering medical school. I am the 22-year-old girl who started writing her first novel, A Rose Much Desired, during anatomy class, where she sawed off a human leg. I am the 22-year-old girl who aspired to publish at least one work while in medical school. I am the 23-year-old girl who wrote her first story to be published, insha'Allah, which was renamed "The Hybrid Dance." I am the 23-year-old girl who co-directed a cultural show with her classmates that celebrated the African Diaspora and was musical director for her second year show, realizing the dreams of performance that she never allowed herself while studying through college. I am the 24-year-old woman who studied for and conquered USMLE Step 1. I am the 24-year-old woman who decided not to miss Ramadan because of tough coursework and fasted successfully through her OB/GYN rotation and still got her desired grade. I am the 25-year-old woman who survived third year of medical school. I am the 25-year-old woman who fell in love with family medicine. I am the 25-year-old woman who realized her aspiration and matriculated into the school of public health, studying family and community health and maternal child health. I am the 26-year-old woman who was an intern for a project to find solutions for homelessness of transition-age youth in Massachusetts. I am the 26-year-old woman who is applying to residency and interviewing across the country as I type this.
I am the 26-year-old woman who has made mistakes in the course of life but always has her home in Islam, alhamdulillah.
None of this is the mark of a woman who has been ambling through life, aimlessly waiting for her husband to come along. No. I don't know why I though that.
I don't generally like to lay out my life in this way, but for my own purposes, I had to. I had to slap myself in the face and see, in fact, that I've made some very purposeful decisions in my life, academic and leisure and otherwise, to achieve my goals.
As the quote above says so nicely, we are created differently and we are born into different circumstances. Some of us recognize this and love the stage we are in and develop our capabilities to the fullest. I think I recognize that we are born into different circumstances and I have developed my capabilities. What has not happened is that I have not loved the stage I am in.
I was constantly trying to be something else, be somewhere else. Thus the movement of I am more myself now than I have ever been.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Paradigm, Part III
As salaam alaikum,
At the time I'm posting this, I'm sleeping soundly in my hotel south of San Francisco right now, hopefully, the day before my first residency interview. As I'm writing this, though, I'm procrastinating my final residency interview preparation, which will entail me verbally answering a series of questions that could come up during the interview, reading about ACOs and PCMHs, and reviewing Contra Costa's residency program and coming up with questions tailored for both residents in the program and faculty.
One of the blessings of going into medicine with this rigorous training is that you're always on the cusp of something bigger, and you're constantly growing. Even though we sometimes feel stagnated, like we're in suspended animation, or that we our adolescence has been perpetuated in this odd state of arrested development as many of us don't marry and have children during this time, and we, unlike our peers, are yet to own salary, I think this extended development really affords us an opportunity to grow past what we otherwise would have been if we were dropped artificially into the hands of adulthood with the advent of paid employment.
It was a big thing when I held a human heart in my hand the first time in anatomy class. It was greater once I learned its physiology and pathophysiology. It was greater when I held a live, beating heart in my hand during surgery. And even greater will it be for me to actually be a partially-licensed doctor and finish my training in residency into the physician I intend to become. And even greater will me be completing that residency. And even greater will be my learning through my career. All insha'Allah, of course.
And the greatest, insha'Allah, will be when I end my career and end my life and can reflect on all I have learned and all I have done.
Without foresight, which few of us actually have, life can seem stagnant at times when we are on the verge of great things. And I'm one of the more anxious ones who feels antsy and itchy and fidgety at those times when lives pauses. Instead of being anxious during the quiet times, I should relish those times and use those times to do some of those other things that I love that are not medicine...
This life, just like we are, is God's creation. It was not merely created to teach us to avoid haram, because there is so much more in this life that is actually halal...and it's not just halal meat! We can strive to live this life to the fullest while being God conscious, and if we are in that place spiritually, we can tie everything to the afterlife, or if we are more evolved spiritually, we don't have to make that mental circuit to recognize those things that nourish our souls and Heaven, insha'Allah, will be a given.
I have found a way insha'Allah to live Islam more organically and a way to live my reality more organically and to anticipate my life partner more organically. I therefore feel more comfortable in my own skin, in my own way of being. It is not the type of comfort that keeps one from striving in the way of Allah (swt) but is rather the type of comfort that allows one to strive more in the way of Allah (swt) because they are no longer paralyzed by fear of abstract and intangible things of their own minds' creation.
I am no longer paralyzed by the fear of abstract and intangible things that I created in my mind that made the life Allah (swt) always intended and intends and will intend for me impossible.
And I am more myself now than I have ever been.
More to come...
At the time I'm posting this, I'm sleeping soundly in my hotel south of San Francisco right now, hopefully, the day before my first residency interview. As I'm writing this, though, I'm procrastinating my final residency interview preparation, which will entail me verbally answering a series of questions that could come up during the interview, reading about ACOs and PCMHs, and reviewing Contra Costa's residency program and coming up with questions tailored for both residents in the program and faculty.
One of the blessings of going into medicine with this rigorous training is that you're always on the cusp of something bigger, and you're constantly growing. Even though we sometimes feel stagnated, like we're in suspended animation, or that we our adolescence has been perpetuated in this odd state of arrested development as many of us don't marry and have children during this time, and we, unlike our peers, are yet to own salary, I think this extended development really affords us an opportunity to grow past what we otherwise would have been if we were dropped artificially into the hands of adulthood with the advent of paid employment.
It was a big thing when I held a human heart in my hand the first time in anatomy class. It was greater once I learned its physiology and pathophysiology. It was greater when I held a live, beating heart in my hand during surgery. And even greater will it be for me to actually be a partially-licensed doctor and finish my training in residency into the physician I intend to become. And even greater will me be completing that residency. And even greater will be my learning through my career. All insha'Allah, of course.
And the greatest, insha'Allah, will be when I end my career and end my life and can reflect on all I have learned and all I have done.
Without foresight, which few of us actually have, life can seem stagnant at times when we are on the verge of great things. And I'm one of the more anxious ones who feels antsy and itchy and fidgety at those times when lives pauses. Instead of being anxious during the quiet times, I should relish those times and use those times to do some of those other things that I love that are not medicine...
This life, just like we are, is God's creation. It was not merely created to teach us to avoid haram, because there is so much more in this life that is actually halal...and it's not just halal meat! We can strive to live this life to the fullest while being God conscious, and if we are in that place spiritually, we can tie everything to the afterlife, or if we are more evolved spiritually, we don't have to make that mental circuit to recognize those things that nourish our souls and Heaven, insha'Allah, will be a given.
I have found a way insha'Allah to live Islam more organically and a way to live my reality more organically and to anticipate my life partner more organically. I therefore feel more comfortable in my own skin, in my own way of being. It is not the type of comfort that keeps one from striving in the way of Allah (swt) but is rather the type of comfort that allows one to strive more in the way of Allah (swt) because they are no longer paralyzed by fear of abstract and intangible things of their own minds' creation.
I am no longer paralyzed by the fear of abstract and intangible things that I created in my mind that made the life Allah (swt) always intended and intends and will intend for me impossible.
And I am more myself now than I have ever been.
More to come...
Sunday, November 6, 2011
[uncensored]: Paradigm, Part I
As salaam alaikum,
I'm sitting in bed, reading my Kindle version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and I had an epiphany of sorts, weeks in the making. I was reading the story of John Moore, a man who was diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia whose physician, who sued his physician for not informing him of the purpose of the many follow up appointments that Moore attended miles away from his Seattle home. When I read about the sudden appearance of a consent form that Moore felt uncomfortable signing, his physician's somewhat violent insistence that he sign the form, and then his later contracting a lawyer to find out that his physician had been taking samples from him to create a cell line named "Mo," I was like, shit!
And I laughed, and looked at myself in the mirror, covered in my comforter for heat and yet sleeping naked, the heat blasting in my poorly insulated apartment because we don't have to pay.
I looked at myself and I smiled and I said aloud, "I'm more myself now than I have ever been."
And it's true. Right now, this last hour, I'm becoming more myself than I've ever been.
There's so much to say.
I laughed and said shit because I'm halfway through this book and I've just learned so much about the history of medicine...it makes me want to read more and more on the topic. I decided to go into this field because I wanted to translate my love of science into a service career, and I picked medicine. I went further with my dedication to service and decided that I wanted to go into primary care, and chose family medicine. While I see medicine and health care in general as a potentially benevolent entity in our lives, what with its Hippocratic oath and its base of helping people, I've always recognized that there is a potentially sinister and dehumanizing side that is pervasive in some areas more than others. This is really vague because it's really quite ubiquitous in the field, from the level of specific specialties to training programs to fields of research.
And I guess more than ethics class teaching you snippets about the Nuremberg Trials or the Tuskegee experiments, this book highlights succinctly some of the many injustices that were committed in the name of biomedical science, the people who were exploited, and the racists that were the founding fathers of many of the technologies and therapies we now take for granted. For example, the father of cell culture was a eugenicist and a Nazi sympathizer.
I think this is an important book for all medical students to read, particularly those of African decent, to understand a little bit of the history of the field we're going to, to appreciate how far medicine has come even in our lifetime and just years before our births, and to therefore learn to revere less the field and some of its predecessors and recognize the importance of our place in getting health care to those who need it most, those of the very populations that have been marginalized and exploited. We owe it to them, essentially.
I want students of African descent, even Africans who don't feel like they're part of the African American experience, to read this and recognize why it is that there are health care disparities...it's because just 50 years ago, a black patient, dying, could go to a white hospital and the all-white staff, including doctors and nurses, would feel comfortable sending that person away to their certain demise because they upheld segregation and didn't want a black body to taint their white hospital. Fast forward 40 years to Katrina, and its no wonder that happened. The Civil Rights Movement was great but future generations did not carry that forward. The movement was awesome in the most formal sense of the word but it was incomplete without the next generation understanding what their task was to be done.
But that's not why I'm more myself than ever before.
It's a complicated sentiment that, as usual, I'm not sure I can express succinctly. It all started when I met D (yes, he's still around, in some form). I met D while going out with my friend. I saw him "across a crowded room" and I instantly found him attractive. I think I'll save it for another entry.
I realize more people would probably read my stuff if it were shorter. At the same time, it wouldn't be me if it were shorter, so I think I'll put up with a lower readership in order to express myself as I see fit.
I am, after all, more myself than I've ever been before.
I'm sitting in bed, reading my Kindle version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and I had an epiphany of sorts, weeks in the making. I was reading the story of John Moore, a man who was diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia whose physician, who sued his physician for not informing him of the purpose of the many follow up appointments that Moore attended miles away from his Seattle home. When I read about the sudden appearance of a consent form that Moore felt uncomfortable signing, his physician's somewhat violent insistence that he sign the form, and then his later contracting a lawyer to find out that his physician had been taking samples from him to create a cell line named "Mo," I was like, shit!
And I laughed, and looked at myself in the mirror, covered in my comforter for heat and yet sleeping naked, the heat blasting in my poorly insulated apartment because we don't have to pay.
I looked at myself and I smiled and I said aloud, "I'm more myself now than I have ever been."
And it's true. Right now, this last hour, I'm becoming more myself than I've ever been.
There's so much to say.
I laughed and said shit because I'm halfway through this book and I've just learned so much about the history of medicine...it makes me want to read more and more on the topic. I decided to go into this field because I wanted to translate my love of science into a service career, and I picked medicine. I went further with my dedication to service and decided that I wanted to go into primary care, and chose family medicine. While I see medicine and health care in general as a potentially benevolent entity in our lives, what with its Hippocratic oath and its base of helping people, I've always recognized that there is a potentially sinister and dehumanizing side that is pervasive in some areas more than others. This is really vague because it's really quite ubiquitous in the field, from the level of specific specialties to training programs to fields of research.
And I guess more than ethics class teaching you snippets about the Nuremberg Trials or the Tuskegee experiments, this book highlights succinctly some of the many injustices that were committed in the name of biomedical science, the people who were exploited, and the racists that were the founding fathers of many of the technologies and therapies we now take for granted. For example, the father of cell culture was a eugenicist and a Nazi sympathizer.
I think this is an important book for all medical students to read, particularly those of African decent, to understand a little bit of the history of the field we're going to, to appreciate how far medicine has come even in our lifetime and just years before our births, and to therefore learn to revere less the field and some of its predecessors and recognize the importance of our place in getting health care to those who need it most, those of the very populations that have been marginalized and exploited. We owe it to them, essentially.
I want students of African descent, even Africans who don't feel like they're part of the African American experience, to read this and recognize why it is that there are health care disparities...it's because just 50 years ago, a black patient, dying, could go to a white hospital and the all-white staff, including doctors and nurses, would feel comfortable sending that person away to their certain demise because they upheld segregation and didn't want a black body to taint their white hospital. Fast forward 40 years to Katrina, and its no wonder that happened. The Civil Rights Movement was great but future generations did not carry that forward. The movement was awesome in the most formal sense of the word but it was incomplete without the next generation understanding what their task was to be done.
But that's not why I'm more myself than ever before.
It's a complicated sentiment that, as usual, I'm not sure I can express succinctly. It all started when I met D (yes, he's still around, in some form). I met D while going out with my friend. I saw him "across a crowded room" and I instantly found him attractive. I think I'll save it for another entry.
I realize more people would probably read my stuff if it were shorter. At the same time, it wouldn't be me if it were shorter, so I think I'll put up with a lower readership in order to express myself as I see fit.
I am, after all, more myself than I've ever been before.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
