I just returned from a weekend of backpacking in the White Mountains. It would have been a weekend like countless ones before it but this one seemed different because it's the last time I will hike there for a year. In ten days from now, I'll be on an airplane headed towards my new home, Zambia. Each view into the familiar valleys, each summit I hit, each cozy night in my tent, with good friends, on top of a beautiful mountain was made more bittersweet by the thought that all that is coming soon in unknown.
My emotions vary wildly on a daily basis. One moment, I'm immensely excited for all that is to come. The next moment, I feel this questioning, this hesitancy, did I make the right decision to do this, to give an entire year of my life? As I watched my car drive away last week, it hit me especially hard. It's no longer my car. A years worth of driving to hospitals way too early in the morning, NPR blaring, coffee stains and breakfast bar crumbs are all that remain. It will not carry me to my fourth year adventures, to more hospitals, to my journey of figuring out what kind of doctor to be.
Tomorrow is the first day of fourth year for all of my classmates. They will be waking up early, heading to new hospitals, ready to work hard and impress for one of the most important rotations of fourth year. Instead, my week will be full of studying and packing. Packing up my room, putting away all the things I will leave behind, trying to fit all the things I will take with me. How do I efficiently pack a years worth of life into two suitcases?
And there will be many goodbyes. I don't know if I want to say so many goodbyes. But I have chosen my path. Take a deep breath, twende (well, that's Kiswahili but close enough for now), let's go!
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