The meaning of "Match Day" for me

I recently added a "Match Day" countdown to the blog but realized that I did not explain it. (Sorry Ingrid!) For those of you familiar with the world of medicine, and particularly medical school, you can stop reading here. For those fortunate enough to have never personally or vicariously experienced medical school, Match Day is the day that medical students are matched with a hospital for residency. Every medical student in the entire country receives this information on the same day at the same time in a formal ceremony held at their school (...envelope please...and the survey says...). It is a day that we have been anxiously anticipating for six years now, and since the end of the third year of med school is upon us, I figured it deserved an official countdown. The schools (and their affiliated hospitals) that Carl will apply to over the next several months will almost exclusively be limited to the midwest, including Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas, with Missouri schools receiving top marks from our end.

This means that a major move will likely happen for us in just under a year. I have sooo many feelings about this. I will likely revisit this topic at a later time, but for now I will just say that this will be an especially strange move for me. In past, I've always moved to a town/state with which I was not familiar. Moving to Lake Forest, Bell Buckle (TN) and Baltimore were all places I had never been, and I just sort of had to feel my way around. But the midwest (including my hometown of St. Louis) is somewhere with which I am both intimately familiar and completely estranged. For all practical purposes, I have not lived in the St. Louis area since I was 18. Of course, I have been back countless times to visit my family, but it's not the same as actually living there. The town that holds ALL of my childhood memories holds very few adult memories. It is strange to think that my elementary school and the church that we attended no longer exist. My grandparents took part in the making of this school, my father and all of his siblings and my siblings attended this school, and now these are buildings used for other purposes. My family also lived in the same house for my entire childhood, but now my parents have a new home more suitable for their retirement years. It truly is so strange. So for me, moving back to the midwest will not be so much of a trip down memory lane but a chance to actually see a place from two completely different perspectives, in two different phases of life.

Wherever we move next, it will mark a new chapter in our ever-evolving life story. And since "every beginning is some other beginning's end" (how lame to quote a pop song?), so this impending move will mean that our time on the east coast (maybe more appropriately - the mid-Atlantic) is coming to an end.

Baltimore is somewhere I will always hold very dear to my heart. This is where my young adulthood lives. It is in this place that Carl and I forged our way in the unfamiliar territory of adulthood. No more college days of room and board (wasn't that nice?)...and aren't paychecks great?...and don't bills stink?...and what happened to all the free time that I used to have? Then we upped the ante with responsibilities like a house, a dog, and of course, our precious baby girl. And things changed. The paychecks seem to shrink...and the bills increase...and free time virtually disappear. But even with these increased restraints and pressures of med school, we are probably happier than we have ever been.

I've had this completely unsubstantiated belief for a while now that everyone has a time that just suits them. Like in Goonies, everyone has "their time". I think the reason that I didn't mind turning 30, and honestly was even happy to, is because I feel like this time is "my time" - the time that fits me and my personality. I really enjoy being the mom of a young child. Since we plan to have more children (at undisclosed...and ultimately unknown...dates) in our thirties, I'm happy to be here, with my ideal time just on the horizon. I will probably (hopefully) have similar feelings before each new decade of life, but for now, I am really excited for the near future. So much so, that I have to continually remind myself to live in the moment. (Can't suppress dreaming in a Pisces girl, I guess.)