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4 months ago
6
At the hospital where I’m doing my internship, we have two batches of interns: Batch A and Batch B. Every year, Batch A comes in six months before Batch B, and it’s tradition for Batch B to organize a send-off event for Batch A when it’s time for them to leave. Then the cycle continues—when Batch B’s turn comes, the next incoming batch (now Batch A) returns the gesture.
Today at work in my unit, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) pharmacy, I was startled once again at how quickly time flies. You think a year is a long time, but before you know it, it is over. I still remember when I started my internship. I remember it like it was just yesterday. I was lying on my bed when my phone rang. It was an unknown number. I answered, and the voice on the other end introduced himself as Prince. He was asking if I knew where Annex was—our first unit. That call would be the start of a two-month rotation with Prince at Annex, it would be the start of my internship under Sir Gabriel, and my internship would grow into a truly memorable chapter of my life. I started my internship with Prince in the same unit, and after we both left Annex we went our separate ways to different units, and it seems I am about to end it with him in the same unit. It has all come back full circle. Talk about a poetic ending to my internship.
I still remember how I would walk over to Chidera’s unit. I would ask him about the mechanism of action of certain drugs. I still remember the jokes we shared, especially about and with “Indian Boy”—we were the very first interns to experience him. Those moments are so vivid that it’s hard to accept how long ago they were.
Annex feels like it was yesterday.
I remember Modular Theater. I remember Accident and Emergency. I remember spending New Year’s day in the hospital, watching patients cry in pain while, outside, people celebrated. I remember being in the hospital on that January 1st and walking to ARV (it was locked) and sitting outside it and I remember calling Madeleine to tell her I was spending the new year at the hospital working. I carry these memories, and yet I struggle to reconcile them with the fact that they happened months ago. Where did all the time go?
When I speak with the new Batch B interns about those early months, it feels like I’m recounting stories from years ago. They can’t fathom the freedom we had before the new senior pharmacists arrived. It’s hard to make them understand that we could waltz into the Active Store’s storeroom at will—that, for a time, interns ran the show. Interns were the ones in charge in that hospital. These moments weren’t years ago. They were just a few months back. And yet, so much has changed.
For the past few months, we have left our homes almost every morning to the hospital to see the same faces of our fellow interns and we have laughed and talked with them about the trivialities and mundaneness of our lives, even if they sometimes have been anything but trivial and mundane, and a sense of camaraderie has developed between us in that hospital. This is why none of us wanted to leave the hospital when it was time for some of us to get posted out to another location. We had developed a camaraderie amongst ourselves that we had not yet been prepared to see that office relationship severed prematurely.
Today at work, I was looking outside the door of my unit watching people pass by, and I was hit by the realization: I’ve been here for nearly a year. I’ve walked through those hospital gates almost daily, never once calling in sick. And now, a memo has dropped in our WhatsApp group—calling for contributions for the Batch A send-off. My send-off.
Suddenly, anxiety rushed in.
Soon I'll be out of this hospital and I have no idea what I am going to do next with my life. I have no idea what comes next for me, and this uncertainty fills me with anxiety.
I have been open about my anxiety with people. I was talking to a girl and was telling her I had no idea what the future held for me. I am well aware, or at least I have read, that women don't like it when a guy exudes uncertainty about his own future because women are after men who can provide a sense of certainty and security for them. I knew that by talking about my anxiety with this girl - a very pretty girl - she was likely to find me unattractive, I knew this, but I told her anyway. Why did I do this?
Maybe because vulnerability, though risky, makes me seem real to her? Or maybe it was a subconscious attempt to make her leave? Why do I do this?
Don't psychoanalyze me. You will not like me when I am psychoanalyzed.
I have read that sometimes you need to be a little bit anxious. Anxiety gives you a sense of urgency. That sense of urgency could stop you from wasting time and spur you to do something meaningful with your life. BUT, I have also read that anxiety can be a bad thing. That sense of urgency can make you to make impulsive decisions. So, to be anxious or not to be anxious? that is the question.
Today, I told my colleague Nicole—who went to school with me and is now interning here too—“Time flies, man. I still remember when we started our internship. Now it’s almost a year. Time flies. Tomorrow morning you’ll wake up and you’ll be 50.”
I've got dreams, man. Places I want to be. Things I want to do. And when I wake up in the morning, I do the things I am supposed to do to bring me closer to these dreams. But what if it don't work out, man?
As a character from what I believe is one of the greatest films ever made, Inception, says:
“Well, dreams, they feel real while we're in them, right? It's only when we wake up that we realize that something was actually strange.”
