- I'll try to sew you Halloween costumes as long as you'll let me.  Especially onesies with animal ears.
- I'll write you letters each year of your life, to look back on and know how much you were loved even before you could understand.
- Your friends can feel welcome at our house and feel safe on their bad days.  I hope you learn to comfort others and sit with them in their sadness.
- We can have cheat days and eat all the cookies we make.
- I hope you learn to love life, and live fully, and find a purpose that sets your heart on fire. 
- I pray that you rest in Him all your days.  When you fall, that you'll turn and seek Him.  That you'll be safe.

I've been told that I should pray about you.  So here it goes:

- I hope you let me change your wardrobe (if you need the help, of course ;))
- I'm going to need a lot of alone time, not because I'm annoyed with you but just because that's how I refuel.  I hope you're okay with that.
- Hopefully you're good with kids... because you're probably going to have to be the Fun parent.
- Please feel safe with me.  Show me your thoughts, worries, random daydreams, mistakes.
- Don't be afraid to keep digging deeper, gently, over time.  Even when I hesitate.  Because I want to be known, but no one has ever really understood until you.
- I pray that you're waiting patiently for me, as I am for you.  That you don't get too discouraged or lonely.  That you're able to find joy in the day to day as you strive to make the world better in your own way.
- Life your life to the fullest.  Now.  There's only so much time we have.  And whatever time we'll have together, let's make it the best.
- Come watch a sunrise with me once a year.
- May who you are and will be, be because of Him, inside and out.

I don't remember there being a dandelion season.  But days on days, countless tufts of white fluff have floated through the air like gentle spring snow or tiny feathers of faeries.  They gather on my eyelashes tiny, lazy wishes and I wonder if they are each one being granted.

That morning, I awoke to one simple sentence in my inbox that threw my well-intentioned plans and imaginations for the next 4 - to 30 - years to the wayside.  I realized that the lacquered door I had been knocking at for months until my knuckles bled had always been bolted shut.  When I finally turned away in cold clarity, I was shocked to find right beside it a door open ajar just enough for me to slip through.

Yes, it hurts that my best - truly, my best - was not enough and that I was last pickings, a theme that I may never escape from.  It's hard not to feel like all this time, energy, money, and tears were wasted.  It's shameful that I was the only one who believed I was suited for my dream.  With bitter gratitude, I know that I am being protected from the future that I could never anticipate.  This I know, that I can trust that there's more to the story.

So, I'm still at the threshold and haven't taken my shoes off yet, but it's warm in here.  Voices I don't recognize yet are calling me in.  Soft music is playing around the corner, and there are big windows that let in the light and the breeze.  It's now that I realize deep down what my feeble prayers have been asking - for some place to finally be like home.  For a place where I can be myself, and be at peace.  To one live fully, without having to sacrifice other precious parts of myself or parts of my forever.  For somewhere I can grow roots, where there's room for someone else to grow with and alongside me.  That's all I want.

A simple talk about my pursuit of OBGYN turned into sharing of faith and the other person's recent struggles with miscarriage.  His story was so poignant, and reminded me why I wholeheartedly chose the field.  I remembered the joys in the simple and the profound, and the struggles that I had discovered the heart to bear.  And yet, this moment scare me, because it re-kindled my passion.  As of late I had been coming to terms - even becoming content - with the idea of ending up in another specialty if I went unmatched.  I worry that if it's not meant to be, that I won't be able to tame down those flames while I'm on another path, and that I might always be looking back.

I need a guy who doesn't try to force himself in.  I don't need a man-splainer, or see-through attempts at forcing common ground.  I don't have respect for a guy who mistakes forcefulness for boldness, or attention for flattery.  I don't want a guy who think he's doing me a big favor by offering what I already have.

What I want to say to the gunner on auditions...

I don't know what to write.  I can't seem to get anything out.  All these words brew inside, grow wild and knock into each other in my chest, and just as they're about to spill forth I pull them back and bury them deep, as if expecting them to transform into something that will make sense and be worth having when I go back to upturn them again one day.

-  Adipose tissue looks glittery really close up, I remind myself as I compulsively snack on the weekly potlucks in the lounge.

Maybe I'm superstitious or whimsical or am able to make connections and a thesis about anything, but I really do believe in signs.  There are happy coincidences, and every once in awhile luck, and then there are moments that are just so directed to the unanswered or even un-asked questions in your heart that you just have to fully soak them in and etch them into your soul as a roadmap.  I don't think God is as silent as they say, especially if His heart is your mirror.  He likes to amaze us.

Tonight was the perfect ending to my 6 weeks of Family Med.  After all the missed chances I finally got to help deliver a perfectly healthy boy to two wonderful people who couldn't have loved each other more and who are going to love their son.  I got to see the awesome power that woman was designed to have to bring life, strength that she doesn't even realize she has.  And as the radio played "Mary Did You Know?" on the way home, reminded how Jesus came to us just the same way to give the ultimate gift only He could give.

Every day in clinic you see life and all the twists it can turn, but it would be a waste to always be waiting for the next destination and forget how full the present is.  I don't want to forget myself.  I want to grow, not change.  I want to find home by making a home - one of these days.

I don't know what 2017, or 2018, or the rest of the future holds, but I know my heart and when it is being pulled and I know when God is nodding, saying that 'This is good.'  With the audacity to be hopeful, I pray that these moments are reminders of His promises.

It's my official first activated day on this app... and it's already causing stress.  Does my profile sound stupid?  I feel so judgmental.  How can you pass on someone with just a few sentences and pictures?
Just how important is wording?  Do normal people actually do online dating?  Am I not normal?  What if the resident I saw on there sees me too?  Awkward all around...

Being in medicine seems to put up a quick barrier between you and others the moment it's mentioned (which is usually very quickly).  Part of me has always wanted that automatic, safe distance.  Part of me wonders if it'll keep me away from everyone.

Prayed with a patient for the first time today.  Not sure if it was exactly allowed (but don't think it's not allowed either?) but it seemed like she really needed it and she had faith, so I offered.  She was the type of patient who no matter what you tried, you would just be going in circles.  Nothing could really be done for her unless her spirit stopped hurting.  In her case, it was the most important part of her symptoms.

Goofy dogs that remember you like an old friend, and recognize and run to you from across the street while dragging their dog-walker along.

The wrench in your stomach when you're introduced by your weaknesses, or at least what others perceive as unfortunate traits, by someone that is supposed to know you well.

When you feel like you're waiting for something wonderful and painful and worth it that will never actually happen.

The glimmer in your eye when you realize that despite all your differences, you'd still trust your brother with everything.

As emotionally challenging this rotation has been, there are still little moments that show me the beauty and humanity of it.  Today, as I was sifting through the various disjointed electronic charts, I came across a small piece of information that might offer some comfort to the patient.  Immediately, she started crying - out of relief - and got just one more moment of peace in what seemed like a lifetime of sadness.  She was already on her way to getting better, but it wasn't just the meds - it was everyone around her that showed her that she was worth something, that they would not dismiss her, and that they cared.

I don't know if I believe in soulmates.  My mind conjures up too many possibilities and combinations of scenarios to think - out of all these people and possible life paths, all these language barriers and shores divided by oceans and time - that there has always just been one person meant to perfectly fit me.

I do know, or at least I do hope, that one day I will meet someone with which that question does not matter.  They will not be my absolute puzzle piece, but our hands will fit together.  My heart will have found a home, and it will not need to, nor want to, search elsewhere for an answer.

It's only day 2 of my outpatient psychiatry rotation, and my heart already hurts.  Not in a bad way per se, but I just want to hug each patient and shout out how much they are still loved.  How much there is still hope, and that it's never too late.  The good news.  But that's not my place, nor would it be helpful for them, and I know that in reality most people will not acknowledge God.  How can you tell someone living in a personal Hell that there's a deep rooted joy to be had?  I am told that the best we can do is to show them love and a safe place, but for me, it is withholding love if I am not able to share with them the truth that has the power to save them?  How am I to simply allude to and metaphorize Jesus?

I am the type of (future) doctor that wants things fixed, or at least resolved, and this is one area where we don't know how to fix things and only know how to mask them.  It is hard to see how much people have been deprived of love from their very beginning, how toxic legacies are continuing to perpetuate, and how difficult it is to break that cycle.  That scared child becomes embedded in a person's core that cannot simply be undone.  I feel so fortunate that my upbringing was whole and safe, but because my heart keeps screaming "This should not be so," it is as if I am not thick-skinned enough, or too naive, or that my softness is not how the "real world" works.  Basically they would say, "If you suffered as much as I have, you would not believe in God either."

As for the religion that my preceptor follows, I cannot help but see it as a search for numbness, and an escape from the precious gift that is now, and that there actually is always an unattainable goal leading to restlessness.  While it may help some people cope, they aren't being genuinely healed.  They are only finding peace in nothingness, and that is not life lived abundantly.

On the drive home, "Good, Good Father" played on the radio and the words rang so true - "I've seen many searching for answers far and wide, but I know we're all searching for answers only You provide."  I can't deny their suffering, but I pray that their hearts will turn and seek to be truly known.

It's my birthday today, and I know that I want to stay soft for the rest of my life.