Gathering my People

This has been a really, really rough week.

Really.

I didn't expect it at all.  I finished call at 8 am Monday morning; I had lots of uncommitted time in the evenings to relax with my couch and my cats; and there didn't seem to be anything unusually stressful in my calendar.  It was supposed to be a good week.

And then we had a department meeting.

There are changes happening at my university, and while logically I expect that the changes will all be fine (if not actually good), they do create a lot of uncertainty.  And as an anxious person, uncertainty is not my friend.  I've spent the whole week calculating how long I can survive off the money in my bank account, wondering what I could do if I was no longer a physician, and being tortured by my sensitive GI system*.  It's been miserable.

While lying awake on the couch in the wee hours of this morning, wishing that my cats would consent to me squeezing them like a security blanket, I realized that I needed to do something differently.  I can't live with this level of anxiety for the ten years or more until I've squirreled away enough money to retire.  This isn't working.

Thankfully, today was a paperwork day, so I had lots of time to figure things out.  And what I figured out was that I need a support system.  People who have been through what I'm going through who can offer me some advice.  Unfortunately, in Medicine this is a really, really hard thing to find.  We are supposed to all be perfect and to not need anything from anyone, so finding someone with whom we can discuss our challenges and vulnerabilities isn't easy. 

Coincidentally, just last week I had run into an attending who, years ago, had given a talk to my residency program about the challenges she had faced as a resident and young attending.  When I realized this morning that I need more people, my brain went "Ah-ha!".  That was who I needed.  Except...she is an attending that I don't know personally.  And I run into her about once every 3-6 months. 

So, going against every instinct of mine to be shy and quiet and never ask for anything, I emailed her to see if she would meet me for coffee.

And she said yes.

And then I emailed another attending.  Who also said yes. 

Suddenly, after a week of feeling alone and scared, I don't feel so much of either.

*For the record, none of this is rationally necessary.  Everything is going to be fine, one way or another.  This is just anxiety.

How Am I Doing So Far?

This week was my first week of call since I wrote my post about how to not hate call so much.  (I've been on call for 21 of the past 42 days.  Too much call.)  As the week approached, I tried very hard to say no to anything but the most essential of activities.  I deferred dinner with a friend until next week.  I said no to doing anything with my Mom.  I was ruthless with turning people down.

And then the week arrived.

Monday night a group of medical school friends whom I only see a few times a year were getting together for dinner, and I couldn't say no.

Tuesday night my girlfriend's parents invited us over for a birthday dinner.

Wednesday night a friend was visiting from Egypt and wanted to meet for dinner.

Thursday night we decided to go see a new house that had just come onto the market.

Friday night was trivia night at my girlfriend's church.  And I love trivia.

Over the weekend, we have seen three more houses, gone out for breakfast twice, gone for an impromptu coffee with my Mom and brother, watched my niece in a volleyball tournament, shopped at two craft markets, seen Romeo Dallaire speak, and gone for another birthday dinner with my girlfriend's friends*.

I apparently am incapable of just saying no to anything.  If it sound remotely interesting, and especially if it involves food, I am there.  Regardless of how tired or extroverted out I may happen to be.  Regardless of how much I need to just be quiet and still after the stress of a call week.  Regardless of what I say in my blog posts.

And yet...somehow this week worked for me.  I gave myself the option of saying no to things, but when it came time to exercise that option, I never wanted to.  I got to do a lot of fun and interesting things with people whom I love over the course of the week, and it felt pretty good.  I'm not quite sure why it was okay this time when it wasn't the last time I was on call, but somehow it was.  Maybe it was knowing that I could say no to things without guilt?  Maybe it was only being on call for one week and knowing that I would have a long stretch of recovery afterwards?

I haven't the foggiest clue, but I'm very glad it did.  And I'm hoping that it will continue to do so when the next stretch of call comes around.

Ignoring Money

As a medical trainee, I pretty much ignored my finances.  Having been a disciplined saver of at least 10% of my earnings since I turned 18, it was depressing to watch my savings first disappear and then turn into a six-figure debt.  So I didn't.  I stopped looking at my bank account, I stopped filing my taxes*, and I essentially pretended that money didn't exist.

I existed in this world of willful ignorance for eight years, until a scare at work made me question whether I was going to get to be a doctor.  Suddenly the debt that I had thought would be easy to repay grew monstrous, as I imagined paying it off without a physician's salary.  So I started paying attention.  And budgeting.  And slowly I got myself to a point where my net worth went up a bit every month.

And then I got my adult job.  And suddenly my net worth was going up a lot every month.  Within 10 months of starting as an attending, I had saved enough money to repay my debt.  It felt pretty awesome.  But it also felt pretty obsessive.  Every day when I came home from work, I would check my bank balance and my credit card balance and my payment owed balance to figure out how much I was worth.

Every single day.

It got to the point that I was attaching too much of my self worth and feelings of security/insecurity to a single number.  On days when I'd have a good clinic (or, even better, have a good clinic and be on call), I'd feel happy, confident that I was moving towards a future of security and happiness.  On days when I'd pay my rent or my car insurance, however, I'd be miserable.  Any downward movement in my net worth felt like a failure.

So I stopped looking.

For all of October, I kept my net worth file closed and simply ignored it.  I kept tracking my earnings and my spending, and I must admit that I tried to mentally estimate my net worth a few times, but I didn't check my net worth obsessively.  And it felt so much better.  I didn't get angry at patients who failed to show to clinic, viewing them as a lost revenue stream.  I didn't get upset when I had to, or chose to, spend money.  I knew that, regardless of what was happening day to day, overall my net worth was going in the right direction.

I was going to be fine.

Ironically, October had the second biggest net worth increase of any month since I started working.  This was in no way related to my behaviour, and in every way related to the 15 days of call that I worked, but it was still really comforting to know that I could let go of my hypervigilance about money, and it would still be okay.

Now that October is over, and I can check my net worth as often as my heart desires, I'm trying hard to not fall back into my old patterns.  I don't want my happiness to be tied to money.  I don't want to be anxious on the days when my spending exceeds my earnings - which is every single weekend day.  I don't want to be constantly comparing myself to all the personal finance bloggers and feeling inadequate.  I want my money to be in the background, slowly growing, while my much more exciting and fulfilling life goes on in the foreground.

*This is a really, really dumb thing to do. 

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Wondering what my November goal is?  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  I'm feeling burnt out at the moment, and all I can think about is spending four days this weekend at a cabin with my girlfriend.  And books.  And nachos!

Self improvement will have to wait for December.