Doctor Life, Navy Wife: Reflections on 2024 - Hopes for 2025
Serving patients when my partner serves in Japan: growth, return to long-distance and meeting all the dogs.
Remember when we thought 2024 would be the year we finally "had it all figured out"? *laughs (and sometimes cries) in millennial existential crisis* Instead 2024 felt like a reminder of the tumult of being a military spouse, a physician, returning to a long-distance relationship (we’ve done it before, a lot) and evolving in my career through some hard work and intermittently circuitous paths.
Some things I focused on and am proud of:
In my continuing quest to "optimize my morning routine" (thanks, every self-help book from 2015-present), I've mastered the art of shift work yoga. Sometimes at 5 AM, sometimes at 1 PM, because nothing says "work-life balance" quite like doing sun salutations when the sun is actually setting. After years of scoffing at YouTube tutorials, I've become that person who religiously follows Yoga with Kassandra's 10-minute challenges.
My kitchen has evolved into a food-waste-prevention laboratory, thanks to Jenneatsgoood and Mark Bittman's Kitchen Matrix. Turns out "how to repurpose slightly questionable produce" is a legitimate life skill that somehow wasn't covered between organic chemistry and anatomy. Who knew that "adult life" would involve so many conversations with yourself about whether those leftovers are still good? Just a public service announcement, University of Georgia has extensive food safety information covering everything from food storage to home canning if you’re feeling extra ambitious. I (knock on wood) did not give myself food poisoning or any loved ones botulism.
The highlight of 2024 reads like a cosmic gift (literally): watching the solar eclipse in Vermont with friends, accompanied by a greyhound whose commitment to lounging would make my student loan debt feel motivated. Turns out 16 hours horizontal is in fact possible and will remain aspirational. As day turned to night and nocturnal creatures started their impromptu concert, I realized that sometimes the best moments come when you show up with zero expectations and just let the universe do its thing. It helps to have a video commemorating the event with a truly joyful giggle and frolic in the field that encompasses how I feel about the entire event.
Runner-up for "Best of 2024" goes to our YouTube-guided DIY adventures. Special shoutout to all the fearless women (Simply Aligned Home, Frills and Drills, Neatly Living) and men with magnificent mullets who've convinced me that yes, I – a person who was raised on Mr. Fixit Fox and toting around my dad’s tool caddy – can tackle home improvements. Nothing says "I've got my life together" quite like owning power tools that you still have a good amount of fear over. One project at a time, we’ve transformed our space into a home.
Let’s talk about the plot twist that really threw us: my partner's unexpected deployment to Japan. Cue the daily crying sessions accompanied by daily guilt sessions about the crying, a vicious cycle. The Navy, as it turns out, is an even more demanding mistress than medicine – and that's saying something from someone who survived residency. The 14-hour time difference means one of us is always eating breakfast while the other's having dinner, making "How was your day?" conversations feel like time travel.
The biggest lesson of 2024? After collecting professional achievements like they were candy, I've reached attending status only to ask myself: "Now what?" It's like reaching the summit of a mountain only to realize there are dozens of other interesting peaks to explore. Research? Education? Obesity medicine? Sleep medicine (insert ironic laughter here)?
Meanwhile, loss and the relentless march of time have made me pause and reconsider my priorities. Moving back home has been like stepping into a time machine where suddenly all my friends are discussing school districts and mortgage rates instead of happy hour specials. Building and maintaining community as an extroverted introvert feels like trying to assemble IKEA furniture without instructions – theoretically possible, but exhausting and likely to end in tears.
2025 Resolutions (That I probably shouldn’t share Because Science)
1. Operation Community Enriching: Actually respond to text messages and attend social events instead of practicing my award-winning "Sorry, I have to wash my hair" excuses. I have been so recharged by the annual trips to meet friends and watching us all change and grow, I’d like this to serve as the impetus to overcome the inertia.
2. Professional Pause Button: Take a breather from the constant doing/learning/meeting treadmill to figure out what I actually want my medical career to look like. Revolutionary concept, I know.
3. Movement Without Martyrdom: Return to regular exercise without comparing myself to people who somehow have time to train for marathons while maintaining sourdough starters. My version of a burpee might look more like an enthusiastic stumble, and that's fine. Giving myself grace for recovery and recognizing that having to pause exercise for IVF and now being able to get back into it is a privilege.
4. Waste Not, Want Not: Continue the crusade against food waste, even if it means eating questionable leftovers. My future self (and the planet) will thank me, even if my taste buds are filing formal complaints.
Here's to 2025 – may it bring fewer unexpected plot twists, more cosmic phenomena, and the perfect balance between having your life together and admitting that none of us really know what we're doing. And if all else fails, at least we have an endless supply of internet tutorials and dogs. Mostly dogs.
What are you proud of from 2024 and what are you hoping to bring past the resolution phase in 2025? Toss a comment below, we’d love to hear from you!
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Do you think the reason I am terrible at home improvement is because no one with a good enough mullet was available to teach me?