Make it work

The famous words of Tim Gunn, fabulous and wise fashion sage that he is, are very applicable to the world of maxillofacial prosthodontics.

It really is a mantra in our world because different patients come with very unique conditions that require a creative use of the basics in prosthetic dentistry.

Tim Gunn on Project Runway

But, as I sit here in the middle of a hotel lobby of the San Diego Grand Hyatt (previous ACP 2016 Annual Session location and the city in which I attended my first ever AAMP conference), these words ring true for life outside of prosthodontics.

My hopes and aspirations for this blog is to be honest (and a bit poetic) about the ups and downs of being in a teeny-tiny-albeit-important subspecialty that traverses the lines of medicine and dentistry. So much can be said bout the basic, foundational stuff - what levels of education are needed, what’s it like going through boards, what is a day in the life like? These are important. These things need to be known, shared, and discussed. And although my life in the past dozen years has been heavily proportioned towards the professional spectrum, I do indeed have a personal life. And that personal life is what directly abuts, supports, but ironically competes with my world of maxillofacial prosthodontics.

These worlds co-exist. They have an interesting parallelism and the occasional convergence, but mostly, they stay divergent.

Having had been the majority of my life a single, unattached individual (with the support of friends/family/colleagues) I had the ability to manage my professional and personal lives separately.

But, I would definitely not claim that I ever achieved balance. The aforementioned characteristics of my life and my ambitions, goals, and hopes definitely skewed my focus disproportionally to the professional side.

Even though I describe the challenges tied to being within this profession, the linear trajectory that I established with my professional aspirations certainly made planning my life easier. By that I mean, I simply had to determine what “point B” (i.e. what is the next career step on the to-do list) is and then connect the dots from “A” to “B”. Looking back on my path into maxillofacial prosthodontics, I can see the step by step progression I made. I got through dental school, residency, and then fellowship. I got an awesome position in which I could envision myself developing, growing, and moving up the ranks.

And then, I found someone. Someone who valued me. Someone who inspired me to see the world outside of my (contact) lenses, who cheered me on to achieve my goals and aspirations, who celebrated my imperfections, who found strengths in my weaknesses. This individual also found in me someone they could confide in, entrust with their deepest thoughts, insecurities, vulnerabilities but also their ideas, enthusiasm, and warmth. We found within one another, love, in all of its forms - friendship, collegiality, and care to name a few.

But, in welcoming and sharing lives, things change.

I am now in a place where my lives, both professional and personally, are shared with another individual’s and I share in theirs. Although I’ve certainly affected other people’s lives through care, there always remained a separation in which I could not only distance myself, but also strategize and plan my life independently; however, in this new state, the linear curve no longer applied and with that, I found that I also no longer could use my road map.

In reality, it is so much easier to be in control. Manifest destiny - this is reflective of how I felt I could achieve and become someone within the profession. In a way, I felt that in order to make an impact and have meaning, I needed to rise through the echelons of the profession.

Without a roadmap, I admit that I initially felt lost. My original “point B” did not match with the “other point B” of my partner’s. I needed to veer off to a shared “point X” that better aligned with our lives as opposed to just my own. Honestly, I am concerned about what that means for me. I worked very hard to get to the point that I am in right now and to lose momentum is my biggest concern because I don’t have the sense of where I am going next.

Gradually, though, I am starting to grasp that this newfound reality is bringing forth new possibilities that I have not imagined.

In caring so much for those in my professional life, I did lose touch of caring for myself and caring, with as much attention and empathy, for those in my personal life. In staying so focused on the onward path of the profession, I could also be blinding myself to the paths leading to other wonderful and unknown things. To love, support, celebrate, cheer, and comfort are the qualities of a provider. I, and those in my personal life, certainly deserve to share in these things too.

And, overall, there is so much more to life than this.

As I am (as of typing this - I have moved away from the Hyatt and now in the Omni hotel lobby) currently supporting my partner as we figure out the next step in our shared lives, I will try my best to take these reflections to heart. To go off course, halt, veer, u-turn - it is alright. And, if there is anything that maxillofacial prosthodontists do well, it really is to “make it work”.

This post’s lesson: I will need to add to my CV the job title - “expert downtown San Diego hotel lobby sitter” after this week!