It is time for what is most likely the most important (and exciting!) chapter of this gap year: the story of how I got into my dream medical school.
At the end of January, I interviewed at my top ranked osteopathic (D.O) school in Kirksville, Missouri. It was incredibly exciting, especially since that school is the first osteopathic medical school ever founded. This was the school that I received the acceptance call from during the fun day at the park with my brother and sister (back in Chapter 12).
The medical school interview cycle typically ends around March or April. By the praise of God, I had interviewed at most of the osteopathic medical schools I was interested in. I was left awaiting one possible interview from one of two M.D. schools in my state, the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
If you’ve been following my journey from the beginning, you will know that I have spent this whole year trying to learn one thing: trusting Allah (SWT). It sounds easy, but I promise you it is not. While I was receiving nothing but negative responses from schools last year, I thought I “trusted” Allah. The truth was I was harboring feelings of frustration, hopelessness, and anger and telling myself I was trusting Allah but upset with the “messed up way life works.”
Turns out, that was not trust.
I was constantly afraid. Afraid of failure, afraid to waste time, afraid of the next challenge I might face, afraid of the “hard part” of the journey never ending. This is the kind of fear that overwhelms a person, wakes you up in the middle of the night feeling as though you are lying in ice, cold water. It is the kind of fear that makes you feel small and insecure. Due to this fear, I was also torn in half whenever receiving a compliment for any work I was doing. Half of me was left in a puddle of emotions, grateful and appreciative for the kind words, and the other half of me was worried that I was fooling people. Could I really be deserving of any praise?
It turns out that Allah saved my life and my sanity when I did not get into medical school.
Did you think I’d say that statement?
Neither did I one year ago.
But that is not trust. And I needed to learn trust. I needed to learn how to be content and grateful with where I was and with what Allah had given me.
I turned into someone who became entitled to getting everything she worked for right away, as though every amount of work should immediately yield results. That kind of thinking leads to the constant ice, cold, drowning fear of failure. Strong people do not fear failure; they look at each obstacle as another hill they must climb. Failure does not become an option.
I learned trust when I studied for the MCAT for the second time even harder than the first and received roughly the same score. Surely there had to be a reason that this happened. The only way I could believe in any further efforts after that was believing that Allah had done that for a reason. But I was still afraid, so terrified in fact that I fell into a month of severe anxiety. The gym, which had always been a place to run my stress away, became less of a place of solace. The TV shows I used to love to binge watch no longer distracted my mind. The writing I always turned to to spill my feelings on a page was dry. The fear took away every feeling I had of who I was. Despite this, I battled these feelings (thanks to the support of my closest people) and completed all my applications and hit submit. I had to trust Allah.
I learned trust again when I received my first interview invite. The school was in Kansas City, MO, which was farther than where I wanted to be. Yet this was a defining moment. This moment proved that this cycle was not going to be like the last. The fear began to diminish and my head was above water. Allah was taking me somewhere. Better hold on tight.
My trust was tested when I received my first rejection of cycle. I had to remind myself that at that point I had two interviews and one acceptance. This rejection will not define you this year. But it was a reminder that I shouldn’t get caught up with the progress of this cycle. I was beginning to float on the “highs” again, thinking I could get everything I worked for. It was a reminder that there were no guarantees in the process, regardless of how confident I was feeling in that moment in time.
By the time I completed that interview in January, I was set. If this is what Allah deemed this cycle to be for me, I was content. I don’t quite know how exactly to describe that feeling because it is much more than a simple idea that the word implies. It meant that I was not looking for anything more for I had accepted that these were the experiences Allah wrote for me to have. I had become stronger, better, more accepting of everything than ever before.
So when some people are surprised that I say that being given a gap year was the best terrible thing that could’ve happened to me, it remains true. I needed to learn the true meaning of trust. Once I understood that, it became easier to let go of the fear and easier to be more forgiving of myself. There was no more fear of “failure.” Everything that I always deemed before as “failures” now became opportunities to grow and become better. They were lessons to teach me that just because I worked hard, that doesn’t eliminate the need to work even harder.
Fast forward to March. I was flying in this feeling of contentment, not thinking of the schools I didn’t hear from or the opportunities I didn’t receive because look at everything that had happened! It was wonderful! Alhamdulillah! I loved my job, as I was learning something new every single day. Just a year prior to that, I was lost and searching for a reason to continue in medicine. My life had made a full 180 degree turn.
Then one day, while I was at work, I received an invite to interview at the Medical College of Wisconsin, the top school on my list. I read the email at least eight times- I am not kidding.
I did not need this nor did I expect this. I was content with where I was, grateful, satisfied, happy.
The email opened up a door, a dream that I could be so close to. What if I could actually be this close to home? The closest school I was looking at now was 6.5 hours away, but I had accepted that maybe it was written for me to learn something from the distance.
Surely there has to be a reason that this happened.
Scrambling through the tears and the shaky hands, I accepted the interview invite and called my parents to break the news to them, to which my mother joined me in tears and praises to Allah.
It was happening.
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