Scars

I had a skin biopsy a few weeks or months or something ago. In pharmacy school time, it is recent enough that I don't have a scar yet but not so distant as to have been last semester or even before midterms and that's as close as I can pinpoint the event.

Anyway.

Since the stitches went in, a scar has been forming. I have had this same size biopsy a few times now on various patches of skin and I somehow hadn't noticed the time from stitches to scar so acutely as I have now. This scar has been taking way too long to form, I thought.

In the first week while I waited for the stitches to come out I was sure it was infected. It burned, it ached, it bugged me, it woke me up (or other things woke me up and once I was awake I was very bothered by it).  I was sure something must be wrong in how long it was taking to heal. It oozed and all that stuff. I was out of sorts. I went in to have it inspected and it was deemed perfect. The creepy unhealed mess that it was, that was perfect and exactly how it was meant to be at that stage of healing, according to someone who knows what's what after having seen oodles of these.

Lately I've been thinking about where I expected to be now and where I am and if it matters that my expectations were wildly wrong. One of my professors has mentioned to me or us several times about "over the last 3 years" in pharmacy school and stuff about how I finished a requirement (that requires reflection afterward of course) in my first two years so I didn't do anything to meet it this year and it is bugging me. It just grated on my last nerve so much that my bonus year gets glossed over. I didn't finish that requirement in my first two years of school, it took me the full three but here I am at the end of the third year of school after four years. It's also that it isn't just me that it grates when people gloss over the extra time. I think it's about 15% of my class who started with me and is starting rotations soon. It feels rude to me that we get ignored as a group. The dean's pep talk included a "did you imagine you'd be here 3 years ago? Did you think you'd make it? It all goes so fast!" section and I was tempted to walk out. 3 years ago? I thought I'd be somewhere very different than this. I thought I'd get lucky and have the perfectly timed after 2nd year baby and then graduate and have a job and a 2 year old and a 6 year old. Here and now? No job, no 2 year old, no graduation, just a funk where I feel like a screw up.

Anyway, I think that most of what's broken in me is my expectations and that I'm disappointed that life isn't meeting them. I get gut punched when I see someone with the middle child we don't have. It stings a lot when my classmates are having second children during pharmacy school or just after. One classmate has the almost 2 year old we'd have if pregnancy 4 had gone well (perfectly timed for summer break of course) and will have another in the next couple of months, that elusive 2 year spacing I always thought would be ideal. I had thought that I'd have a job now and be studying for board exams and going somewhere. Instead I'm getting ready for my rotations and spending a lot of time away from home. I suppose I just have the itch for change since such big changes were in the plan originally but are delayed some more now. Limbo is a lonely place to be and the bonus year of school has in many ways been one of limbo.

But that pesky new scar that's slowly forming on my arm reminds me that just because I think things should move at some speed doesn't mean they will or that they ought to. I bet if someone had seen thousands of cases of expectations and plans dashed they'd say that sometimes it works out better to have the delay. It is entirely possible that I am impatient and things are moving along at just the right speed. It might even be probable that everything is fine in the big picture and I will get where I ought to be only this way. I'm really looking forward to the scars of pharmacy school healing completely so I can get back to my life or I settle down enough to realize there is no destination to life, that it's all a journey to somewhere we will probably never recognize. Hopefully this year of rotations is that opportunity.