Christmas Present 2011

Last year, for Christmas, I took a big piece of butcher paper and mapped out my options. This year, I was accepted to the prestigious Columbia University premedical post baccalaureate program. Wow, I got into Columbia! Now I could go to New York in two weeks and start going to the oldest and best program in the nation, with direct linkages to the nation’s top medical schools—if I really wanted to. Why the note of hesitation? Columbia would involve picking up and moving to a new city—when, due to previous moves, I am no longer accepted as a resident in any state! And it would involve burying myself in debt-- Columbia’s is the most expensive program in the nation, with linkages to the most expensive medical schools in the nation. That’s fine, I’ll just plan on making tons of money or I’ll go to the military. But is that why I started this journey? Do I want to be limited to the rat race of expensive medicine living in expensive places? Good thing I visited some doctor and med school friends in Detroit before I came, all of whom warned me not to get into too much debt and all of whom emphasized that it is not the program but the MCAT scores, and later on the med. school scores, that count. One laughed hysterically at me when I mentioned Columbia’s pre- medical price tag—about $100,000 When I started this journey, I wanted to be a meaningful part of a community. I wanted to have the skills to help people practically, and I wanted to be financially sound. I kept thinking of my grandfather, a family practitioner in a small Iowa town. When I think about going to New York in January, my stomach just begins twisting—and it’s not from Christmas cooking. For now, therefore, I am going to South Dakota with my grandparents. It is where I can take the classes I need for one tenth of the tuition costs at Columbia. It is where I can shadow doctors, work, and even be part of the Dakota Sunshine Singers—who sing oldies at different nursing homes. I am still applying to Johns Hopkins and am considering Columbia, If they’ll accept my excuse for deferment, and if I can afford the $500 for holding my place, that is.

Odessius

I recently had lunch with a friend, whose 21 year old son was done with college and in the local fire force. Wow, he is set for the rest of his life already and here I am, at 26, doing what? My 17 year old brother is making commission selling phones, drives a BMW, and looks on me with unbridled distain—“What are you doing, Sarah?” “ I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in school!” “I’m helping Mom and Dad, you abandoned them!” I know he has no clue, but it is still hard. I guess I have to ask, what did I get out of the last 5 years? Apart from Bantu languages and the real taste of pineapples, what did I learn? When I started this journey, I wanted a chance to think, to breathe, a wilderness experience. I wanted a colorful mosaic backdrop on which to paint the rest of my life. More than that, in my gut, I just had to go, I had to do it. Thankfully, I read Homer’s Odessey before coming home. On his way home from the war in Troy, Odessius lost all his booty, his ship, and his crew. He was delayed for over a decade, held up by various goddesses and vagrants, but, in the end, he returned. Despite all the delays, despite all the loss, despite, at times, regretting his life, he never regretted making the journey. It was, after all, the journey that made his homecoming the most epic poem of several millennia. His journey made him.

Alibi

To keep Ugandan men from pestering me about a green card or visa, I routinely began lying about where I was from. Usually I claimed nationality from which ever country had been in the news that morning-- Yemen, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, or Lybia. When coupled with a convincing story of my occupation-- crocodile farmer, mercenary, nun, it usually worked. In the US, where people really want to know where I have been and what I have been doing, however, I pause, slightly ashamed. I really want a good alibi. On one hand, I have had an interesting, rigorous experience and I have been pursuing my education along the way. On the other hand, I do not have much to show for it, neither have I had a very practical, stable existence. I am dreading introductions to old great- aunts and to my parents' friends before they begin. The problem, however, is that my old alibis don't work here. Lybian mercenary-- not for great aunt Delores. The best alibi I can think of is that I've been teaching kindergarten in northern Michigan or stealing kids for the state in Detroit. Hmmm... somehow, it's just not interesting enough; which is, probably, the reason why I have my real story in the first place.

This past weekend another of my best friends got married. You leave the country, and its like all your friends are parceled out to different men-- of their own will, of course. This gave me a great excuse to get back to the Big D. The city of light, the city of grime, the city leading in both syphilis and obesity rates, with the nation's top murder rate to boot. In other words, we may have some extra rolls around but we still get down. To me, the city is a frail, elderly woman who lives in sub- optimal conditions. One look at her face, however, and you'll know that she is a dancer. This is the place I call home from a distance. This is the place where I always cry when I leave. For the last few days, I have been alternately tearing up and trying to hide it. When here, however, I notice that most of my friends who are trying to do "good in the hood" are also outsiders. Those I know who were actually born and raised here are trying to get out. In fact, I feel like I am back as an expat in Africa.

I would love to live here, in the community of med students, doctors, and community workers that are trying to get this city back on its feet. But is that who can really do it? I feel that I have been around the block with this idea long enough to know that it is leadership from and in this community that will determine it's future-- not the carpetbaggers. Not me. At this juncture, I realize how important it is for me to be a part of a community. I also realize that people return home, they don't really make a home. So, for the first time, I'm telling people I'm from South Dakota or Iowa, where my extended family is, where my parents were born. That is where I plan to go in January, after all. We'll see what happens!

Everyone has a butt

Ok, one of my aunts excluded, everyone has a butt. Especially my new nephew who was just born-- he definitely has the prominent, rounded Zoutendam cheeks, with plenty of hot air to boot. Someone once told me that everyone has an opinion like everyone has a butt. Talking with different friends and relatives about my crazy past and my crazier dreams, this is ever so true. Two recent med grads took one look at me and said "Physicians Assistant or public health, but I would never do med school again." Another friend looks me squarely in the eye and says, "You need to start dating." Two friends, both of whom are also "late bloomers," having tried a variety of careers before settling down, were more encouraging. One former missionary kid who traveled for four years before, at a age 26, deciding to complete his pre- med requirements, said, "You'll be 35 either way." Another, who is, in his 30's and beginning law school, talked about following dreams, but at the same time not discounting previous strengths. He reminded me that I can do some cool stuff with public policy that I haven't even gotten into yet. The problem with all of this is that everyone is right-- for his or her life, but not necessarily for mine. One person told me just to focus straight ahead, ignoring the noise on both sides. That is not bad. Yesterday, a woman sitting next to me put her arm around me briefly in the middle of the sermon. I hadn't even noticed that I was leaning over, holding my head with my hands and trying to keep from crying. She had her son with her, whom she was trying to keep from running up and down the isles. Come on, Sarah! I thought, you are a hot mess! Yes, according to the urban dictionary-- someone who looks as if they've been to hell and back. Check!

Rocks

Coming up from this overseas experinece, it is time for the bends. Sometimes I feel like I have just been wasting my time and that I should have done it all differently. I find myself trying to keep from telling people what I have been doing for the past few years for as long as possible. I am applying to post- bac programs, and, considering the cost, also applying to universitites where I can get in state tuition for the same courses. I am agonizing over whether I'm doing the right thing, whether I am being crazy, envying people with regular jobs and steady lives, and generally twisted up in knots. When one aunt asked me where I'm headed, I told her "Straight to the psychiatrist's table!" Mornings are usually all right but at night, I lay shivering (in a heated house in Georgia, under 4 blankets), thinking, unable to sleep. The gospel today (now that I can get scripture readings and meditations in my phone as an app, I have no reason to fall behind) was from Matthew 7:21-27, about building a house, a life, on the rock of Christ. If my existence is really built on Christ, not on a career, or an education, or even a family, He is all that really matters. Yes, I am pursuing my career dreams, etc., but, in the end, it is my relationship with Him that is important. Moreover, if that is my rock, on which my life is built, these small storms of career and etc., cannot reach me; indeed, they are too low. The key to walking on water in a storm, after all, is to focus on Christ and not look down!