Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Courage to hope - A call to arms

I have too much time to think right now and I am realising just how much harder my thinking patterns make my life.

I have just spent a huge amount of money and a huger amount of hope on an operation to finally fix my legs.

At the same time, I am waiting for the final yes or no to go to Sydney Med School next year.

If (I still have to say that) I get in then I can apply to do an elective, actually one or both of 2 possible electives, working in another country. Today I found out that one of the options is Nepal, even rural, community health Nepal. Something I have dreamed of. Something that would marry my interest in development and my extreme desire to practice the hands on art of medicine in one. This would be the best thing I could imagine.

It should be good. But it HURTS. I am terrified that these things are not going to happen, I am terrified of failure, I am scared, when it comes down to it, that I am a fraud and that everyone is going to figure that out.

I am scared that if I allow myself to hope, it will hurt more if my plans don't come to be. I am scared that everyone thinks that I could never run as far as my old running partner, that I have never been the top of the class...and I am afraid that if the surgery doesn't work, or I never find that motivation again, or if they reject my application, that everyone will just think that it is confirmation of what they already knew...that I am full of crap.

The fact is that I know it is not true. I really do. But I still make it very very clear that I might not have done well in the interview and I still feel the need to talk about when I used to run 40k or whatever and I still choose to think that people are not believing me and I still choose to feel as though people are trying to rub their success in my face, that they are telling me that I'm not as good as them.

Someone very insightful has been helping me think things through and she said it all really when she said that because I'm so scared to hope, because I am always trying to prepare myself for the worst potential outcome, my life goes by with me feeling as if the worst thing is happening all the time.

But I'm still so afraid of failure.

I know with my mind (and the help of said insightful person) that expecting the worst doesn't actually stop it from happening and it doesn't actually make it any easier.

But I am afraid of failure...

and I am afraid of falling in love, with a city, with a man, with a life that I might not get...

If I could have one wish, and I guess, in my less tired and periodic state, I can have that wish...I would wish for the courage to hope. Hope is brave and honorable and alive and exciting and inspired and innocent and loving and inspiring and the only way to really experience all the good that is going on around you.

Even if it is hard.

The book about Obama's upbringing is called 'the audacity of hope'. I loved that even before I knew why.


4 comments:

  1. Simona...whether you believe it or not, you are beautiful, you are inspiring, you are brave, courageous and full of grace. You, my friend, are someone that should hope, because amazing things will happen, have happened and ARE happening through and in your life.
    I treasure the person who you are and continually pray that God will use you in mighty ways and that we can do Doctors without Borders someday, together. YIKES!

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  2. Yikes indeed man! that would be so unbelievably awesome! I would actually die of happiness!

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  3. Would be KICKASS!
    I think I would die of happiness as well. Adventures, doctoring, cutting peoples legs off on a park bench. I'm up for it!

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