I turned 40 years old last year and suddenly realised this is it! My life is happening while I’m fighting for the career I want and wondering about the life I thought I would live. I thought, “I’m having my mid-life crisis before my midlife”, and then very quickly, “If my mom and grandmother are anything to go by, I’m more than ten years past my midlife”.
And just like that, I decided to let go of the picture of what I thought life would be like and learn to find joy in the story I am living. I consciously chose to love my life; there really is so much to love.
People may call what happens in midlife “a crisis’. But it’s not. It’s an unravelling – a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live. The unravelling is when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are – Brené Brown
I always thought I would be a successful cardiothoracic surgeon in private practice, performing daily life-saving surgeries. Why wouldn’t it be possible? I’m a good doctor and a great surgeon. My husband and I moved to a different province (twice) to realise this dream. I set up rooms, got a receptionist, introduced myself to every general practitioner and cardiologist in the area and sent yearly Christmas gifts to thank them for their “support”. I held onto the values my parents taught me: “Hard work will be rewarded” and “If you are excellent at what you do, doors will open”. I set up a website, a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook page, and an Instagram profile. I emailed and posted monthly newsletters to educate the public and referring doctors on symptoms and diseases that might need a referral to a cardiothoracic surgeon. And yet, my practice remained quiet. I appointed a business coach because I thought the problem might be that I didn’t know how to run a business; a private practice is a business, after all. However, after a year, he admitted that the politics in cardiothoracic surgery can’t be overcome by just being a good surgeon, marketing strategies or awareness campaigns. I felt like a failure, not only in the eyes of my very successful urologist husband, who rebuilt a flourishing practice every time we moved but also in the eyes of my male colleagues. I wondered if their idea of a female surgeon might be true and whether I should consider being barefoot in the kitchen after all.
Nurse, teacher, secretary. These were acceptable futures for a girl like her… after all, you are only going to be a nurse until you get married – Kristin Hannah, The Women
After fighting my way to the top and being used to running in 6th gear for so long, the sudden time I had on my hands made me highly anxious. I did not know what to do with myself. What do you do if you wake up in the morning and you have nowhere to go, and have no purpose?
I had to fill my days. Binge-watching Chefs Table on Netflix, I marvelled at how Nancy Silverton was obsessed with making the perfect sourdough loaf. She baked thousands of loaves until she got it just right, and then she built her empire. I sat there amazed and sad, wondering where I had lost my passion. I have never given up on anything in my life. My dad did not raise quitters.
And then, someone told me that at this stage of my life, strength is not in the ability to persist but rather in the ability to start over. But how do you start over? Where do you start? Do I just leave 21 years of experience in the medical field behind? Do I just forget the blood, sweat, tears (all literally) and sacrifice to become a cardiac surgeon?
It took multiple sessions with my psychologist and hours of introspection, I realised I was tired of fighting for a career I might never have. I was ready to embrace the silence and to live a softer life. Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City had it right when she said, “You don’t move on because you are ready; you move on because you have outgrown who you used to be.”
How did a woman go about opening up her world? How did one begin a journey when no invitation has been issued? – Kristin Hannah, The Women
During one of my many days in front of the TV, I watched the documentary Anthony Bourdain’s life, and I thought: if he could start his career at 40 after writing the ever-famous Kitchen Confidential, so can I. I must also venture into the Parts Unknown. Unsure where to start, I decided that the parts I venture into should not be entirely unknown and have some familiar foundation. I didn’t want to feel that I wasted everything I’d worked for, so I wanted to use my medical experience in the medical world as a foundation and explore what else a cardiac surgeon can do apart from performing cardiac surgery. While investing so much of yourself to become a cardiac surgeon, you are never exposed to the options of moving laterally in your career; the focus is to be the best surgeon.
I enrolled for a master’s degree in bioethics and health law to meet people related to but outside the field of medicine. I needed to broaden my horizons and open my mind. I took a course on medico-legal report writing because there is no accredited medico-legal cardiac surgeon in South Africa. And I decided to start a blog.
Despite all the risks involved, a thing in motion will always be better than a thing at rest; that which is static will degenerate and decay, turn to ash, while that which is in motion is able to last for eternity – Olga Tokarczuk, Flights.
I want to write about cardiac surgery and my experience as a female in this world. I want to write about the new life I’m creating, my softer life, sitting in the sun with my dogs and all the lessons I’m learning on this new path. I want to write about life. Bouncing this idea off everyone I spoke to, the question I was asked most was: “Who is your target audience?” “Everyone”, I said, and then with trepidation “I hope a few men will read it and not think I’m an angry woman with long underarm hair”. But mostly, my blog is for women, any woman. Women in the medical field, women in any other professional career, it’s even for stay-at-home moms. Much of my life is rooted in the medical world, but it does not define me and is a tiny part of who I am. I want to write about life – the joys and hardships – with my Heart on my Sleeve.
