My hands are shaking a little as I write this. I am nervous, in a way I have not been in a long time. It is a mixture of the excitement of a child on Christmas Eve and the nerves of a student the morning of an exam.
As a young girl, I dreamed of being a writer. An intense introvert, I spent much of my childhood watching life over the top of a book. I would spend hours on weekends and school holidays writing stories. When I was twelve, I wrote my first novel. Nothing brought me more joy than getting lost in that writing flow, the creation of new friends and new worlds.
As the later stages of high school crept in, I found myself being nudged in a different direction. We moved interstate and my new school placed a strong emphasis on maths and science. Humanities were discouraged, as it would be too hard to get a 'good' score in Year 12. Why would you study Arts, when you can get a higher score? Writing is not a stable career. You can always do it as a hobby.
I was only sixteen when I selected my university courses. Back then, students in Queensland were a year younger than in Victoria, where I had come from. I skipped Year 9 to match the ages of my peers, and so found myself finishing Year 12 only a few weeks after my seventeenth birthday.
To my astonishment, I was offered a place in Medicine at Melbourne University, and my future was decided.
Writing was laid aside whilst I pursued a new dream.
Medicine is a strange profession. It one of the only remaining careers where your university course prepares you for a particular profession, where it is expected you will remain until you retire. In almost every other area of work, it is expected that one will change and grow and pivot, working in multiple areas throughout their life.
In Medicine, you not only receive a degree - you receive a title, an identity. It is one that is worn with pride after years of difficult study and sacrifice, but it can also be a chain around one's neck. Once you are in, you are in for life. To leave seems unthinkable.
Medicine has been hard for me. Academically it was fine, for I thrive on study. But I didn't understand at sixteen what a toll it would take on me, being highly sensitive and introverted. In hospital, it was terrifying consultants and sometimes, nurses. Every day, I had to fight off waves of anxiety to enter the building and keep going.
I stopped writing. I stopped even reading for fun. My mind was so drained by the study and training that I didn't read a novel for years. When I started again, I actually had to retrain my brain to read fiction.
My university course was six years. Hospital training was three years. General Practice training was seven years. Lactation Consultant study took another three years or so. I had four children. I was in my late thirties before I started writing again.
I feared it was too late. But, the joy came back.
Now I can't stop.
I am still working as a rural doctor, and will continue to do so. It was a long journey, but after many years I finally found a clinic and colleagues and specialty that fits me.
But I am not just a doctor, and I feel my soul crying out to me to have the courage to do this. It means starting back at the beginning. It means facing rejection and criticism and ridicule. But, that nagging longing in my heart is finally quiet.
Even if I never manage to be published, I will be a writer. The internet had gifted us new avenues for creativity, and even if the only place I am ever published is here, I thank you for reading.
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