Match Day

Oh, Match Day. After months and months of waiting, we finally got to go open that magic envelope. We'd been waiting, anticipating this day, ready to know what our future would be.

Sound exciting? Maybe a little, but really it was crazy nerve-wracking!

  (See all the envelopes sitting there????? We had to just LOOK at them until noon!)

For the last four years, we have been living in Winston-Salem temporarily. For medical school. We were moving at the end of those four years. It was a no-brainer. We're young. We're fairly adventurous.We want to see new places, put down new roots, try new things. We have the wanderlust, especially me. So we went on a lot of fun adventures to look at different programs. Eric had some great interviews. We had no doubt that Eric would match, and he did.

But we were pretty shocked (okay, more like flabbergasted) when Eric opened up his envelope on Friday and we saw he had matched at Wake Forest. Were we reading that right? That meant... we were NOT moving.

We knew it was a possibility. We had made it that possibility by ranking them (our fourth choice, and behind some pretty competitive programs, so we should have known this was a GOOD possibility), but I don't think either of us actually thought that it would happen. We chuckled when people talked about us staying, because it wasn't really an option. We were convinced we were going elsewhere.

God had other plans! We prayed throughout the whole interview process that we would be in the place where we would grow the most. Who knew that place would be right where we were?

We have spent the last few days changing our mindset. For months, even years, we have thought we'd be getting ready to move right now. Instead, we're settling in for three more years.

Please don't read this wrong, this is in no way a bad thing, just a surprising one. We like Winston-Salem a lot. In fact, I'd probably prefer to live here than most of the other places we ranked, and, the more I think about it, the happier I am. We have a happy little life here, a great neighborhood, church, gym, grocery store, etc. I'm really excited that I get to keep all of those wonderful things in tact.

And we have the opportunity to move again in three years if we want to. Three years isn't really all that long.

More importantly, Eric has a job at an awesome hospital, and he is about to be a doctor!  Wake Forest has been more than good to us. How can we not be happy to continue on here?

I do think that some changes are on the horizon. After all, we've been preparing for major life changes for the last several months. Obviously we've had the HUGE change of adding an extra person to our lives. I left my job to say at home for a little while with Samuel (sorry, I just can't put him in day care if we don't need to) and figure out what I want to do next (go back to school, perhaps?). Eric is about to finally finish up his 21 years of school and start a job where he gets a paycheck (yay!!). Maybe it's time to find a different house or get new furniture. We're definitely open right now to do doing something new.

I've loved the last four years, but these three need to be different, even better. We need to grow, to set goals and to be able to looks back three years from now and see that we have changed in a good way. I'm really curious and excited to see what residency will bring.

Here's to three more years as North Carolinians!