Is this thing on?

I've been thinking more about blogging recently. This is for a couple of reasons.

1) I've recently gone back and read through several of the archives on Michelle Au's blog. She started writing as a second-year medical student back in 2002, when "blogging" was "online journaling" and platforms like Geocities and Homestead were still alive and kicking. She kept writing, nearly daily, throughout medical school, residency, switching to another residency, getting married, having three children, becoming an attending, going part time....the whole shabang. For a medical student like me, her old archives provide a fresh, unique, and honest insight.

It's amazing, and would continue to be amazing, except that, after 10+ years of near-daily blogging, Dr. Au quit cold turkey around New Year's two years ago. Which, I get it, she does have three kids, and a career, and probably better things to do with her time than blog, yadda yadda yadda, but seriously. She didn't even write a goodbye post.

2) I've also recently discovered the shubox, another physician blogger. Like Michelle, she's been blogging for 10+ years, chronically the crazy journey of student to resident to real-life-honest-to-goodness doctor. She also has a family, and kids, and runs, and is pretty amazing. (Too amazing? She's definitely one of those super women that make me feel guilty about eating ice cream out of the carton and watching Netflix (not that I do that) (lies)).

Unlike Michelle, however, she is also still actively blogging.  Which is nice.

3) Life moves fast.  I read back through the archives of this blog, and it seems like forever ago. Which, in a lot of ways, it was.

I also read back through the "archives" of unpublished posts-- my worries about feeling like I could never learn it all, about the frustrations of being interested in everything and nothing, about the patients I met and loved and realized they were dying.

At the time, these ramblings felt like overly personal ramblings of a crazy person-- there was a sense of "I must write because there are too many feelings and they must come out!". But there was also a sense of holding back-- this blog was (is?) semi-public afterall, and aside from the obvious reasons of wanting to not publish everything I felt as a medical student (hi, hipaa! hi, potential future residencies!) it just felt strange. Awkward. Physician-to-be's aren't suppose to write blogs, right?

Maybe not. Probably not. But folks have done it, and have documented a crazy a beautiful journal. And besides, with so much happening and life moving so fast-- how can I not write?