The lost year of finding contentment

I am in the middle of my house job. The future spreads in front of me wide like an ocean. Uncertain like its depths. And scary with all its uncertainties. In my best years , I was never the one with plans about myself. And at 24 with a graduate degree , in middle of one-year internship  and with flimsiest of idea of future , I am far from anyone's best. But after a long time , I feel useful. It's not like when you are in college (possibly just me) when you go for enjoying with friends or sleeping. But working in hospital will do that to you. Make you feel useful. The truth is I am doing a surgical rotation and I am as far from being a good surgeon in making as its possible. My hands had never learnt any skill and they seem as hell to be resisting now. If I am being honest to myself , I don't do anything any other average doctor won't do. But it feels good when a patient goes  home after a big surgery. After a foreign body removal from eye. I may not have saved any life. Maybe in my ignorance I have been part in (God forbid) harming someone. But the lives I have made better seem to make it all worthwhile. Medicine is like a magicians trick. It starts pulling you in when you were sure you had escaped its charm. 

The beautician attendant (who shared my name) giving me card for her parlour. The organic Falsey i now regret not taking from a really good family. The awe-inspiring young well-mannered quiet nephew  taking incredible care of his uncle and his family insisting on making me eat something (which I still refused feeling incredibly inadequate) even after seeing a death of a fellow patient and his attendants rants on how I and my fellow doctors had killed him. I had never felt such gratitude (after finally  breaking down at end an incredibly hard week)of than when my patients had complete confidence in me (after that particular death ) because they had seen that I was giving whatever I had to them. They gave confidance even more than my colleagues that day to continue being me. 

Some seniors are of the view that the clerical work we do wastes away from our study time. But the clerical work forms part of patient interaction. And these four months of my life have rewarded me so much with just the time spent with my patients. I am not a casual Punjabi conversing guy who makes all male patients at ease. But I do try my best to listen to patients. And that's the part I am going to miss most if I decide to go with my dreams. The feeling of these random prayers so casually given to us. And that is why the year is probably gonna be one of my most memorable year along with being one of the most difficult ones. Like the sabbaticals people take. Or the year they spend building houses somewhere. The year of changing perspectives. The year of being different. The year of unknown. 

It's the year I have realised my qualities and my flaws like I had never before. Hearing even a little praise for my management skills gives me courage to pursue the daunting dreams. It's the year I have come to know how much I have changed from  being a care free person. It's the year of finally admitting how much I have not changed in still caring entirely too much of what my teachers think. It's the year of finding out how inadequate my hands are still are after all those years. It's the year of finally accepting that that's okay. Because in the end we are more than our knowledge. We are more than our surgical skills. We are more than just a collection of our good and bad characteristics. We are in truth the hearts hiding deep underneath it all. And that thank God is the real make or break deal