For better and for worse, I am a busy person. I’m also by nature a hole-filler in that when I see a gap somewhere I think needs filling, I have a tendency to start thinking I need to plug it myself. This trait has helped me achieve some of the things I’m proudest of, from medschool, to the student charity I founded, and the choir I organised and still sing with. At the moment, I’m liasing with the medschool to set up a tutoring scheme between first and second year students who are failing, and fourth and fifth years with a bit of extra time. I’m really excited to see if it works – having found out first hand that the medical school support system is a bit ropey, I want to help make it better. I’m not that great at walking away.
In the last few months, as I’ve started coming out of depression and started feeling like myself again, the consuming apathy of the last year has started to fade, and my drive to fit things in has gone up again. This has in part been amazing – I feel like myself again, I feel useful, I feel as though at the end of the day, I have something to show for it, something to say for it. I’m good, when I’ve got projects and tasks to do. One of the (brilliant) IgNoble prizes this year went to someone who showed that high achievers achiever highly because they ‘procrastinate from an important thing, with another important thing – not a waste of time’. This is ‘very me’.
I’m also aware though of a tendency to overdo things – I’ve always been the person rushing around at twice the speed of everyone else, or so it seems. When I’m struggling in one area, I focus on another part of my life to distract myself and sometimes end up overwhelmed. I’m trying to stay away from that. Sometimes it’s hard to chose what to give time to. I sometimes sort of forget that I’m supposed to believe as a Christian that the world is already saved and that I don’t need to save it myself. If I am focussed on being outward focussed, I have less space to worry about my own issues and upsets. I’m not saying it’s healthy, or that it always works, but it’s who I am.
I think at the moment, I’m going to need some real ‘me time’ to get me through the next few weeks. This is usually my favourite time of year, with the changing leaves and the crisp sunshine. It brings back memories of singing harvest songs as a child, of coming home in the twilight. There’s so much going on right now, from placement stuff, to job applications, and at the moment, some friction with one of my flatmates, that I need some slots of time just to be on my own and think, to be on my own and just to be still and know. I need my long walks by the river and over the hills. I need my stretches away from the noise of the world, just quiet, amongst the trees and the water. At the moment, I’m really feeling that need to be in the peace, just with God, just thinking and asking and listening. If I take on too much, I might lose that, and then, where will I be? I’m finding myself falling into reflection a lot at the moment (makes a change, I know) but I feel I need it. I still need to make sense of last year, I still need to bury some hatchets and throw out some dishwater. Somehow, in counselling, I find this hard to breach.
I guess what I’m aiming for here, is balance and a lesson in making good choices. I’m still deciding about the student leadership thing – not quite as clear a decision as it could be, and I’m already feeling pretty maxed out. I sometimes think us ‘busy bees’ get a raw deal from churches, who paint us with the same tar as followers of other ‘false idols’ – I understand what they mean, but I’d rather feel like I was giving all I could for Jesus, even if it wears me thin, than knowing I could do more. I’d rather be rushed, than be as slowed down as I was last year. I’d rather be working for change, than settling for acceptance of things we all need to change.
On another note, I got to practise sutreing today on REAL SKIN (cadavers are hard to come by)! It’s one of those things that makes me feel ‘properly medical’. I possibly enjoyed it a bit too much. So, reader, if you’re in the North of the UK and have any superficial wounds that need sewing up, I am your girl.
Learning to be still 