Growing up is hard to do

I've been punctuating all of my posts with "I'm a med student." I think it's partly because I can't believe I'm actually finally here. I took so many detours along the way. Majored in something non-medicine-related, just to see if medicine was really what I wanted. Rebelled against my parents "I want all three of my daughters to be doctors" wishes/orders. Dabbled in journalism. Tried to be a ballerina. But now I'm here. Because this is where I want to be. And I'm glad for the journey I took to get here, no matter how cliched that is, because now I know that this is what I want.

But that's only part of it. A huge part of me can't believe I'm a med student because that means I have to start growing up. I'm going to take care of people? I can't even take care of myself. I have to talk to patients and assuage their fears? Hello, I'm the geeky, awkward kid with braces who sits in the back eating paste. I'm supposed to convey some kind of wisdom when I have absolutely no common sense? Really?

Med student. It's a huge title. It means responsibility and diligence and thinking of the future.

But I've been avoiding all of that. I want to stay my naive silly self. Be a die-hard romantic. I refuse to turn into this jaded, cynical, skeptical person.

Everyone has to grow up at some point though.

This past Friday I officially turned another year older. It was like any other day, except for one thing. One huge thing. I had my first big unit test. Biochem. Cell bio. Genetics. The foundations of medicine, the professors tell us, trying to convince us that yes, we'll need to know the TCA cycle in it's entirety so we can explain it to our patients - whom I'm sure will be far more worried about whether or not his succinate dehydrogenase is working rather than whether or not we can fix him.

That test, while not quite as hard as I thought it could be, was hard. It was hard because I hadn't had to memorize and then synthesize so much information in such a short time period. Honestly? They took my entire bio major and condensed two years into four weeks. It was hard because I got my grades back within four hours. And they weren't anywhere near spectacular. It was hard because I realized that, even though this is something I want to do, I need to work for it.

My first major medical school test. And my birthday. All in one day. If that's not telling me something, I don't know what is.

It's telling me that I need to buckle down and start studying and start being a med student. This is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life. It's my responsibility, not only to myself, but to my future patients, to know this. No one wants a dreamer for a doctor. We all want responsible, intelligent physicians. So. No more time for silly pipe dreams. No more pretending that the far-off future isn't going to turn into the present in less than four years. It's about time that I start facing what's real and seeing what I make of it, as it makes something out of me.