Homesick

Oh, what have I done?  I talked to my dear, dear husband earlier. My children wouldn't talk to me, they were still angry with me for leaving and especially so abruptly. But my husband, bless him, he is just the sweetest and most generous man I've ever known. Somehow, even though I hardly ever talk about what has happened, he seems to sense that I need this time to get away. We've decided that I must need this time to find something, a personal search for something I'm missing. I really have no idea where I'm going or what I'm doing here.
Tonight I went to see the show in West End London. It was interesting, but it wasn't really what I was looking for. I think part of me thinks I need to do something completely different with my life, something wholly unrelated to practicing medicine, this time around. And during the intermission, I spent 5 or 10 minutes wondering what it would be like to return to my theatre days in college. Yes, I still spell theatre with an RE, just the way we did in those days. I sat there, in the audience, thinking about third electric, which I never did manage to brave myself, where I knew the backstage crew was adjusting the lights for the second half. I tried to imagine myself, as a theatre hand, or perhaps doing publicity. But I know as well as you do that the way in to those jobs is to sell tickets and that I could even audition, but lord knows I'm too old to play any of the good parts. I don't know any surgeons good enough to do what they'd need to do to my face for that. Then my conversation with my husband sealed the deal. He reminded me that I shouldn't forget about my god-damn medical school loans. At the rate I've been paying, they'll be paid off when I'm sixty. If I worked as a theatre hand, I don't think I'd ever get through to the end of them. So I guess my options for work must include something in the genre of medicine, whatever the hell that means. I chose to go to medical school for Christ's sake. It's got to be worth all the blood, sweat, and definitely tears I put into it. I didn't eat when I could, sleep when I could, and sit when I could for nothing. That's gotta be worth some money.
Maybe I'm ready to talk about what happened. Many of you probably know something about how I got burned out from practicing in academic medicine. Too many sick patients, too little time to spend with the ones who needed it most. At the same time, I was teaching students who were more and more disenchanted each year that passed. I had hoped to pursue federal research dollars but wasn't headed in what I felt was the right direction. So I left that venue to pursue work in a non-profit agency. But there, I worked for a woman who let all her federal money go to her head, or rather, up her nose. When the feds showed up, I cooperated and was able to get away without a scratch. I had been on the road to publishing an important paper, after I had worked long years earning ever-larger federal grants to fund the work. But my ties to the now-scorned agency left me with little choice. Luckily I had clinical experience to fall back on, and I joined an established practice with an older physician who was nearly ready to retire and promised I might buy out his practice shortly. Unfortunately, he had made much of his money prescribing pain medicines without practicing sound medicine, and once again, the feds showed up within months of my joining him in practice. I found myself as a witness in the proceedings again, and now I'm left utterly empty of interest in starting over.
Exhausted from all that, I left town and came here. So now you know my back story.
Tonight I was ravenous after the show and found some traditional English pub food - prime rib, mashers, and Yorkshire pudding just like my mother in law makes. Ironically, my family spent the afternoon with her and she made the exact same meal! After dinner, I slept a bit, but now I'm wide awake. I have absolutely no idea what time it is here or at home. Thanks, jet lag. At least this place I'm staying doesn't have any curfew or limits on our sleep time. As long as I've paid for the day, I can sleep when I want. It can be noisy, but now there's no one else here. The other girl who was here earlier apparently found someplace better to go.
After we got off the phone, my husband texted these photos of pictures my children drew. I just love the little birds in the tree and the tiny people hanging out the windows on the airplane. Thank god I have my I phone with me. They said the pictures were for mommy, so I guess they won't stay mad for long.
More later or whenever.