At Year's End

Well, while it's been a crazy last few months, we somehow managed to survive and eventually found ourselves at the end of the year, and at the end of a chapter in our family's life.  As I mentioned we would in our Christmas letter, we closed on our house yesterday and hit the road for a two month stay in Jacksonville, Florida.  Although we will be returning to Rochester for two months when we are done with the away rotation in Florida, we will be returning to a friend's house and to a world of inevitable good-byes.  In truth, I feel a little like we are gone for good already.  Like the place we find ourselves in right now, and the place we'll be in for the next six months, is somewhat like a six-month waiting room. It is a six-month waiting game. A game of limbo. We are in limbo.  One way or another; however, our days in limbo are numbered.  Just as our days of being residents of Minnesota, and Nick's days as a resident at the Mayo Clinic are numbered.  And when those days are up, it spells only one thing for our family: CHANGE.  Change, change, and more change.  Changes in city, in home, and in school.  Changes of income, lifestyle, and work schedule.  Changes in wards.  Changes in friends.  Changes in the way people will perceive us, and consequently, changes in the way people will respond to us.  I've been warned by a number of friends and associates who have graduated ahead of us to expect the labels.  Expect the stereotypes.  Doctor.  Doctor's wife.  And all that that entails.  But I don't think I'm really ready to take on that persona.  I'm half tempted to move into a cardboard box while our house is being built and keep Nick's profession a secret.  I want to give people the chance to get to know us; the us that I know. The us that has just struggled through eight years of medical training with four kids in tow.  The us that we are, and not the us that we have the potential to become with all of the ensuing change.  I hope we never become that us.  I hope with all of the coming change, we don't ever change who we are.

Anyway, enough of my soul-searching nonsense.  I suppose I have the next six-months to ponder on all of the change and philosophize (is that a word!) about how to remain the same through it all..  Well, maybe only five months.  I think for the first month I'm in Florida, my plan is to completely and utterly crash! The last week was one of the most stressful of my life.  It was a sheer miracle that we managed to get out of our house in time, get all of the loose ends into our car, and drive this far running on no sleep and with the flu wiping out most of the family.  It was all a nightmare!  And quite a whirlwind.  When I took this picture of Nick peeling our family's name off of the living room wall a few days ago, it didn't even phase me.

Now, putting it up on the blog, it feels kind of sad.  And kind of symbolic.  We're moved on from that house.  We're somewhat moved on from Rochester.  And in general, life is moving on.  Such are the sands of time.  Happy New Year everyone!  Happy NEW year.