Perhaps one of the greatest things this virus has robbed us of:

Time

The time to spend cuddling the little ones growing up too fast

The time to spend with our loved ones that left us too soon

The time to breathe between crushing shifts at the bedside

The time to properly mourn all these lost moments

The time to give ourselves the grace to let ourselves fall

And the time to pick ourselves back up, skinned knees and all

We have been broken by this virus that drowned us in the undertow

Choking every last scrap of faith we may have held;

Suffocating the little bit of hope left in the recesses of our souls;

Fracturing an already sick system at every fault line that went ignored far too long,

And ensuring that we lacked the

Time

We need to heal.

True adulthood is when you can make peace with the fact that you love and respect your parents, in spite of the fact that they are not always right.

Me, this year, on my last birthday of my twenties.

Anyone else in health care being gaslit by the government, society, and their institution into feeling survivor’s guilt because even if things are crappy for you, they’re crappier for somebody else?

Really feeling for my primary care/family medicine, critical care, emergency/urgent/acute care, and mental health colleagues at the moment. This pandemic has been going on way too long, and no one seems to care about the fact that even when things were reopening, you were all still being worked into the ground (and through the crust of the earth into its molten core) by all the ripple effects of this pandemic uncovering the systemic inequities and BS that was just lurking in the shadows before 2019… All the stuff that health care workers, in general, managed to barely keep at bay from their sense of altruism and dedication (now obligation?) to their patients. If I’ve learned anything from COVID-19, it is that everyone will do their best to take advantage of you, and short of doing your job well, you actually don’t owe them anything.

You really do gotta take care of you first, otherwise this system will beat you down to nothing before you even realize it. “Resilience” is great and all, but it’s really just the system shifting all responsibility for surviving its BS onto its victims.

This system has been sick for a very, very long time. It’s gonna need a lot more than a bandaid and some yoga to rehabilitate it.

When your expressive love languages are acts of service and quality time but you have anxiety so you’re constantly wondering if your loved ones actually find your acts of service useful/helpful/enjoyable (are you even good at doing anything?!) and if spending time with you is annoying or otherwise bothersome

Not to be boastful or anything but I got every child and baby at my friend’s baby shower to hang out with me and it was the best day ever.

1. 9yo niece: this sweet kiddo was really excited to show me around her grandparents’ house (they hosted the party) and also to participate in all the baby shower games! She was also really engaged in helping out with her younger siblings and cousins and it was really nice that she wanted to sit and chat with me outside.
2. 6yo nephew: surprisingly, my friend describes her nephew as pretty aloof–this little dude was chatting my ear off and extremely eager to teach me about all the cool stuff on his grandparents’ property as well as teach me how to play soccer. He was super patient with me despite my baseline lack of coordination and he was very generous with his praise (“that was a good kick!”) and his encouragement (“wow! You almost got that one past me–next time you’ll get it!”). He did get pretty rosy out in the sun so I encouraged him to go inside for a water break… eventually he did go in and very proudly showed me his water bottle.
3. 3yo niece: oh… this little bean. During lunch we were all sort of spreading out to find a place to sit and very conveniently, this little peanut was sitting on the floor at the coffee table with her cousin (who we will describe next…). When I said hello and introduced myself, both little girls told me their names. I asked to sit with them and this little bean nodded and then proceeded to tell me about all the food on her plate. <3
4. 2yo niece: okay, so this little bean is sweet as pie but also a bulldozer of a toddler HAHAHA. She and her 3yo cousin (who is the much shyer of the two!) were extremely eager to help my friend open all the gifts and was very happy to lead her cousin in doing some twirls for her audience (everybody at the party). She was quick to cry (“MOMMY I CAN’T FIND MY BOOTS”) but also very quick to perk up (“OH THERE THEY ARE”). She is the classic toddler that would run into walls for fun… At some point, she had some trouble getting the screen door open to get outside to her mama and just sat in front of it and cried. I told her, “Sweetie, you are a big girl, and if you need help you need to use your words so people can help you. Do you need help opening the door?” The tears immediately stopped, she nodded, and as soon as she was released outdoors she was all smiles and playing hopscotch lol
5. 18mo niece: this little peanut is probably the MOST shy of all my friend’s family’s beans. She had her hair in these tiny little blonde pigtails and has cheeks for days and days and days. Most of the party was spent running between her parents’ legs and hiding behind them, though occasionally she would venture out to approach her 3yo and 2yo cousins, mostly just to watch what they were doing. Then she would retreat to a parent and continue to watch what was going on around her. Toward the end of the party, she walked up to me with her big eyes and batted her little eyelashes and I asked her if I could squish her cheeks and fix her little pigtail that had gone askew; surprisingly, she nodded her assent. She stood totally still for me to do both (and yeah, I squished her face a couple extra times) and then she either followed me around or tried to climb up into my lap butt-first while I was writing a message for my friend’s baby (she wanted to draw with me, how cute is that?!). She had me carry her around a bit too!
6. 9mo nephew: THIS BABY IS SO CHUBBY AND SO CUTE!! Ugh I was so excited to “volunteer to relieve his mom” so she could eat her lunch but really I just wanted to squish this little bean’s cheeks and sing to him about his knuckle dimples!! He really enjoyed clapping and playing peek-a-boo and honestly I was very reluctant to give him back to his mom…

One of my other friends: So… is this what you’re like at work? Don’t you see babies all the time? How do you get this excited to see every baby?

(Our mommy-to-be friend: Honestly I can’t wait until this baby is born…

Daddy-to-be: …Why, so you can give the kid to Sabrina?)

Tl;dr: I LOVE BABY SHOWERS AND BABIES <3 <3 <3

Side note: My significant other (now spouse!) was so incredibly soft and sweet with the little 9mo, even with chubby baby fingers in his mouth. My heart was a total puddle of mush.

“This would be great to build your CV” = academic bulls**t for “Free labour”

what’s in a name?

When people ask me if I will be taking my fiance’s last name after we get married, they usually assume that when I say, “No”, that it’s some girlbossification thing because “he didn’t go to med school” or whatever.

It’s really not…

For me, my partner has been with me through every struggle of my medical education and career from the very beginning. As far as I’m concerned, he’s earned part of this MD with me. He’s the reason I was able to earn it in the first place.

No… I won’t be changing my last name because of the systemic misogyny that makes it so freaking hard to do so! It takes so much paperwork and so many fees for my national and provincial licensing bodies, my professional associations, and so on and so forth… the massive number of barriers just means it’s not worth it. This system caters to cisgendered, heterosexual Eurocentric white men, who are never expected to change their names.

My last name carries a lot of my family’s history and it means a lot to me; being a doctor is only one part of who I am and if I chose to change my last name, being a doctor should not be an active barrier… but it is.

(As a side note: my fiance has considered changing his last name to mine… but because of the same red tape… we will probably not be doing that.)

you know how people always make it seem like the person who knows how you take your coffee or gets one “exactly the way you like it” is your soulmate in life? i mean, come on. most people take their coffee the same way every day.

i’m marrying the person who knows my bubble tea order after asking, “fruity or milky?” and can somehow predict what my ADHD-decision-paralysis ass would’ve landed on after like 30 minutes of scrolling through the menu, getting distracted, then having to be reminded to pick something, etc., etc.