I feel much better today – the pressure from my sinuses and ears is less and I don’t quite feel like death. I unfortunately have all of my notes from yesterday AND today to write, so this is going to be short again.

I’ve had a few things that have been weighing on me this year. One has been the fact that I’m turning 40 in 3 weeks and I am struggling to process that – this feeling like i’m facing a deadline and haven’t accomplished nearly what I’ve wanted to, this feeling of confronting mortality and aging (which has not been made easier by my hand injury that I’ve been dealing with for two years now).

And then in March, one of my residents died by suicide. I had no idea that she was struggling. This is the second suicide in our small group in less than a year and it devastated me. I have wrestled with guilt and grief all year – guilt that I didn’t do more to stop some of the toxic behaviors and environments that I had witnessed but had felt powerless to stop. And so much grief – there’s just a hurt in my heart at this needless loss of such a smart, charming, faulty human.

So I’ve been grieving this year and floundering. Which set up my year of traveling and reflection and “finding myself” again.

I have had a goal for years to see all 50 states, which was a goal set during medical school when I started visiting different places during interviews. When I turned 39, I realized that I still had 12 states to go – and a year to complete that goal.