Christmas Tidings

It’s early morning before work and I’m writing again in the grey of the soft light. The feeling of writing: thoughts running through my fingers, the beat of the words, the shape and sensation of them, the joy of making something tangible out of something existing only in my mind, an exacting almost topographical pleasure. It feels so good to be giving dedicated time over to it again. It is more me than most things I do.

Two weeks ago we bought a Christmas tree. We got home and unpacked it only to find the base was missing – when we called up to ask if we could come collect a replacement, the shop told us we had purchased the very last one of that kind, that they would refund, but were not intending to re-stock. So we improvised: a repurposed plant-pot full of glass pebbles, a somewhat magical balancing act. But what a delight to have a Christmas tree! It fills me with joy every time I lay eyes upon it.

It’s been a while since I last wrote, I wanted to speak to that specifically today. I think a reasonable amount of my readers are medics, but sometimes I wonder what my life looks like to those of you who are not – especially those of you who knew me in my pre-medic days, who have known and seen me in wholly different circumstances. It is very difficult to step back and see that perspective from where I currently stand.

The struggle over the past few months has been that of combining full time work with long study hours, both at home and on the wards, in the run up to an exam that was held at the end of November. But the effort has been going on much longer than that. It was August 2019 when I started putting in long daily hours for the first part of this exam, held in February of this year. Now I’m working towards the final part, scheduled at present for February 2021.

This aspect of medicine sometimes feels impossible. As though the hours (even sans additional non-rostered hours) weren’t enough already. As though the weight of it all was not enough: the near-daily exposure to poverty, inequity, injustice, suffering, death. As though the responsibility of it all – towards our patients, towards our colleagues – was not enough. This aspect of being a doctor: the endless studying, the exams, the extra research projects indispensable for CV building, the competitiveness of training schemes, the never-ending need to relocate as part of those schemes, and at the end of it all – although that end is still far out of sight, the stress of securing and negotiating a position that only comes with heaps more weight and responsibility. For so much of my career I have felt that I exist just at the limit of what is bearable. And regularly, every few months or so, something happens to make me overstep it.

I wanted to write about this today not to arouse sympathy. This may not be a life I chose knowingly ( – I doubt anyone truly anticipates what lies ahead of them when they start out at medical school), but it is a life that I continue to choose actively. Perhaps more so that the majority of doctors, those who went straight from school into medical school: I have studied other things, I have worked in different fields, I have no doubt that I could find employment in another area if I chose to do so. I don’t. I choose medicine day in day out because it is more rewarding than anything else I know. If it wasn’t a vocation when I started out – and in my case it really wasn’t – it approaches one now. But that does not cancel out the magnitude of what it asks of us.

I wanted to write about this today for myself, when I was younger. For colleagues and friends at the same level as me who feel or have felt the same. For junior colleagues and medical students who, as I gradually get more senior, have started to look ahead to my path as an example. It does us no favours at all to talk this down, to conceal the immense difficulties that we encounter on a near daily basis. It doesn’t negate any of the positive and rewarding aspects to simultaneously acknowledge that this other side can be so incredibly challenging and rough.

So there we go. I’ve haven’t written for a few weeks because honestly I wasn’t even close to being in the right frame of mind to do so. Because I was overwhelmed, exhausted, anxious and just burnt out by how how much of myself I have given over to medicine over the past few months. It’s been tough. But as it always, it ebbs and flows. Let’s see how far along I can get this time round. And if you’re currently going through something similar, shout out to you, I hope things get easier soon.

Moving onto more uplifting topics! The Pohutukawa have been incredible this season – in fact, I don’t think I truly appreciated how beautiful they actually can be prior to this year. Maybe I just never before caught them in such resplendency, or maybe something about this year has made them even more majestic than ever before. But either way, they’ve been a daily source of joy for me for the past month or so. I definitely wrote about them to some of you in my Christmas cards – speaking of which, I was organised enough this year to actually write and post these before then end of November and I still don’t think most of them have arrived! I mean, I know this year is different, but for someone who loves receiving and sending post as much as I do, I have a terrible track record with the postal services. Let me know if you got yours! It makes me so sad every time anything gets lost in the post! For my part it has literally made my day every time anything has arrived for me over the past couple of weeks: birthday cards, Christmas cards, actual books?!?! You know who you are. You’re amazing and I love you so much.

Other things I’ve been loving lately: reading, obviously. I finally got my hands on a copy of Sally Rooney’s Normal People and ohmygoodness I loved it so much. So much more than I thought I would actually. I really enjoyed Conversations with Friends, but Normal People is just so much softer and more delicate to me. And really hits close to home. I’ve also been devouring anything by Ali Smith and really loved my first Anita Brookner (A Closed Eye), lent to me by K’s mama when we were visiting Wellington. I love that age of British female writing so much and I feel as though I’ve barely scraped the surface of it – always on the hunt for that era of literature in second hand bookshops. I’m currently reading the first Knausgaard novel which is a whole different thing entirely.

More joys: podcasts! When I was deep in the throes of preparation and angst about my November exam I really loved taking the time to go sit outside with a cup of tea or glass of water and listen to the five-minute long daily Radio Headspace episodes. I’ve never managed to get on board with the Headspace app, but I love Andy Puddicombe’s collaborations with the Nike Running app and these little nuggets were such a comfort to me. In a completely different genre, my sister Bel got me into We Can’t Talk About That Right Now and I devoured the lot within a week. Not sure how I’d describe this one. Bel and I call it “the sisters’ podcast” and I think definitely if you’re close with your siblings you’d enjoy it, but I don’t think that’s a pre-requisite at all – I just found it refreshingly honest and funny and real. Definitely let me know what you think if you’re inclined to check it out.

Going to finish up with a final list of happy things: Christmas decorations at work, warm summer days and evenings, pea season(!!!!!), the colours and aesthetics of The Little Drummer Girl and the videography of Europe in this and Killing Eve, fresh flowers in our bathroom at least once a month, country drives to Clevedon to drink pear cider and eat sticky date pudding, slow weekend mornings with home-baked breakfast, my mama’s advent calendar, my daily morning yoga, long warm summer evenings, the smell of cut grass and jasmine in the air, children playing outside all day long, mine and K’s first Christmas living together.

I just heard today about the latest change in lockdown rules in the UK. Sending you all my love if that’s impacting upon you in a negative way and hoping that everyone reading has a wonderful Christmas.

Missing you all, Zx

PS. Edited this post to add: I’m trying something new – about ten (more?) years late to the game I’ve gotten myself an instagram account. Partly to put these posts somewhere where more of my friends might see them, partly because I have plans for other creative projects that at some point I’ll want to share, but also partly because one of my goals for the new year is to try make deeper friendships out here in NZ (although I’m shy to voice that) and I’m wondering if in some way it might help. I’ll report back on how that goes. Maybe in the meantime someone can teach me how to use it haha – https://www.instagram.com/zks_writing/.