A Golden Weekend
Let me walk you through one of the few tastes of what a “normal” job experience feels like during residency. Last May, I had finally reached my Golden opportunity for two days off on the weekend. What ensued was not what I had planned, but none the less was what I needed. (Names of students were changed to fictional names)
The sacred, coveted, elusive Golden Weekend had finally arrived. After working the past two Sundays and feeling like the past two Thursdays should’ve been Fridays, I was finally going to have my beautiful Golden Weekend. With zero plans other than watching the NBA playoffs, I was ready to take full advantage of this time off.
For most careers, it goes without being said that Saturdays and Sundays are for living your life outside of work. In medicine, however, the lights don’t turn off on the weekend. The normalcy of a weekend abruptly fades from existence after graduation and you find yourself more confused than a delirious patient on what day of the week it is. For the moments when we can pretend like all is normal within residency, we’ve coined a very normal premise to most people as a “Golden” gift for two days off in a row.
As I come home Thursday evening, my wife, Lillian, mentions that a few of her students are participating in a 5K event on Saturday morning to raise money for homes that take care of adults with special needs. She follows that up with mentioning that one of her students invited her to their sister’s 1st birthday party on Saturday afternoon. After being with Lil for over 10 years, I knew that her telling me about these plans meant that I was going to be participating as well. This was confirmed over Thursday and Friday as people were asking us our weekend plans; the response was “student extracurriculars”.
Although I was reluctant at first, I figured it would be a more memorable experience than sitting on the couch all day Saturday. And it turns out, I was 100% right. Starting with the drive from the MET High School to South County, I drove two of Lil’s students who told me all about their summer plans. Jordan, who broke his arm playing basketball a week ago, is planning on getting back into weight lifting when his cast comes off. Funny thing is, the night he was in the ER, I was on call - very likely I would have been his anesthesia provider had he needed surgery. Luke plans to focus on his music production, which was his internship this past school year. He played me a couple samples off of his phone and I was blown away. I couldn’t believe the layering of instruments and vocals that he told me were all original productions.
Once we got to the park, we meet up with the girls who drove with Lillian. For most of the 5k walk, the girls were speaking in Spanish to each other, rapid fire. I was doing my best to keep up and contribute the 5 conversational Spanish phrases I know off the top of my head. I think they were slightly impressed, but they never really slowed down the cadence of their conversation. After we finished the 5k, we went down to beach off the park. Jordan was eager to take his shirt off to get into the water. After mindlessly tossing his shirt on the park bench, Luke and Sara hid his shirt, creating panic when Jordan came back from the water. He was quite worried to tell his mom how he lost his shirt.
Once we finished on the beach, we dropped the kids off at the bus stop. Lil and I had about an hour to chill before our next stop. We picked up Hershey from home, stopped by a store for a birthday card, then headed to Sabrina’s house for her little sister’s 1st birthday party. After walking into the backyard, the first thing you notice is matching Mickey and Minnie Mouse t-shirts that say “Happy 1st Birthday” and on the bottom state “Padre, Madre, Hermana, Primo, Tio, etc”. The mom and dad were serving food by the grill, welcoming us with open arms and full plates. There were probably 30 family members sitting around tables, eating and talking. Sabrina was very excited to show off her teacher to her family at first, then in typical teenage fashion disappeared with her cousins somewhere around the house. We talked to a few family members who described their stories of moving to America from the Dominican Republic, what it’s like finding work in America, and how often they travel back to the DR to see family. After some fruit salad for dessert, we headed home for the evening.
Although Saturday left us pretty tired on Sunday, we were still able to have chill weekend day together filled with exercise, meal planning, Netflix, and some evening Settlers of Catan. Looking back, it wasn’t the two days off in a row that I was first anticipating, but it was a weekend that “filled my cup”, so to speak. I was able to enjoy the weather, find time for myself, get some work/home projects done, and still made long lasting memories with Lillian’s students. I’m fortunate enough to have a spouse whose job brings us out into our community to see what’s going on outside of our Providence apartment. I’m also fortunate that the students she has are cool and respectful people to hangout with outside of school. While I still dream about sleeping in as long as possible without an alarm, I have to say having these meaningful experiences on the weekends is what makes waking up on Monday morning for work much easier.
