I randomly ended up remembering our blog today and was reading our old posts..what a journey it has been since the last post! I think I ended with Chicago vegan restaurants (which we are still obsessed with every time we go back). I also realized I never posted my end of residency reflection and now that is 4 years later...oops. We posted about our goals in California, work, gardening, hiking and so much more.
Raj and I always mention coming back to this and documenting our journey but never actually do it. Today, I'm feeling inspired so let's see where this takes me. I don't even know where to begin or how to format this.
Raj and I
We are going on almost 7 years of marriage and 8 years of being together. I don't really remember life without Raj. And if I do it feels like a remote memory. He is just there present in my life, never wavering. I think the biggest update is that we have created a human being together and it is no longer him and I only. Amaani is her name and she is almost two! More about her later. Raj is still teaching at Ascend Elementary in Fruitvale. I can proudly say that we are still attempting to live more meaningful lives as individuals and as a couple. Now, Amaani is part of that journey as well and she serves as a constant reminder of that. We have gone through our ups and downs but have always been able openly and honestly communicate through it all. Like many before us have said, marriage with a child changes things, but we are navigating through it. We just recently bought a house in May. It is a few blocks from where we lived before. We never thought that would happen. The main drive was to have a space for Amaani to have a garden and be connected to the Earth and not just concrete. Many more things could be said but main thing is we are good and continue to live a meaningful life.
This munchkin of ours was born on December 20, 2014. She is currently 21 months old and is my world. She never ceases to amaze me. She loves to talk and knows Hindi which makes me so happy. Children just absorb the world around us and I don't think I have gotten to fully appreciate that until now. She pays attention to everything we do. She explores things, tells us when she is afraid, is becoming a little more outgoing but still clingy to those she knows more and is always making us laugh. We/I have many goals for her in life but the biggest is for her to be a kind and caring human being. And that she should make the world a better place. Small goals really ;) Becoming a mother has been humbling to say the least. I've always appreciated parents but becoming one makes you really realize what our parents do for us. Thank you to them again! Amaani has her village and we wouldn't be able to do it alone for a second.
Work
When it comes to work, lots of things have changed recently in the past couple of months. I used to be at La Clinica de la Raza as a primary care physician. It is a federally qualified health center and technically my first "real job." I stayed there about 3.5 years and learned so much. Built some amazing relationships with my patients and my colleagues there were family. I reached a point that the anxiety of going into work became extremely high. I didn't know what each day would bring and constantly felt like I was only putting on band-aids to a much bigger problem. I ended up reaching the decision to leave. It was incredibly hard to do and I still wonder if it was the right decision but I needed the mental space to think outside the box. Currently, I'm doing two days a week as the HIV specialist at Tri-City Health in Fremont and one day a week at the UCSF Clinician Consultation Center. I looked back at the old blogs and I'm getting to stick to the goals of post residency and currently have really delved into the HIV world more. I feel like I'm constantly learning and getting to serve a community that is still so often discriminated against.
There is a desire to break free from the system and create something. Ideas that float in my/our head is a space for people to gather, live well together. be in community, grow food, work with our hands, and meditate. One of the main reasons to break away from La Clinica was to have time to do that but the job opportunity at Tri-City came up all of a sudden and I see myself getting caught in the same trap of needing to address the immediate needs in a very limited clinic setting. I don't want to diagnose or put labels on people in what is and isn't wrong with them. I'm a big believer that we are our own biggest healers but we seem to forget that. Part of me knows I'm serving a role and am attempting to be the best doctor I can be, but part of me thinks I'm perpetuating a broken system. I think for now, I'm getting to explore the HIV world deeper which has always been a passion of mine. I also am pushing myself to make connections in our community outside of the clinic setting. Things always organically come up and hopefully one day things will align to create something to live and be well rather than "prescribe" health.
Raj is still at Ascend Elementary, the school he originally started at. I won't say too much on his behalf but it has been amazing to watch him build community and relationships with the kids and families there. We've gotten to see these kids grow. His first class is now heading off to college! There are countless stories to share and feeling grateful at the opportunity to be a part of it.
New Home
Still can't believe we bought a home and the thought of being in debt and bound to a mortgage makes me go crazy at times. As I mentioned above, the main drive was to have our own garden space. Our old home didn't have anything for that and we were watching Amaani become more and more conscious of the world. We wanted her to be connected to the Earth and directly see her connection to where our food comes from. Other motivators were having a space to build community, have more space for our family, it would be an eventual investment. We went back and forth a lot. We put down two or three offers, got two of them and rejected them before we actually went through with it. And even with this, we were so uncertain about the decision. I think I'm slowly coming around to it being worth it but the upfront costs, the unexpected things that we knew nothing about and the things that still keep coming up make me doubt the decision at times. That being said, we picked where we were at because it seemed to be a happy medium of the things we were looking for. We needed it to have a large plot size, I needed a good kitchen and it needed to be in the Fruitvale area. We've done a lot of renovations to it and it is now home. For the garden, we did the sheet mulching and used Planting Justice to plant fruit trees and do the initial clean up for us. We still need to build raised beds, plant fruit trees on the outside of the house but we are on our way! We've had strawberries that have already grown but the worms get to them before we can :( Nature is another natural wonder in its ability to persevere. We still need to make being present in the garden a priority and all the work that comes with it. I know though, whenever I've gone out there, it makes me focus on what is in front of me and is calming.
Random
There has been lots of cooking happening. Knitting started again and now on hiatus again. Hiking unfortunately has slowed down but is always on our minds.
I think that is enough for now. Lots of other random thoughts in my head but will stop. We know we need to have many people over and are slowly going through the list. Stop by at anytime. Hopefully, I/we will actually keep up with the blog to share/document our journey but always a million competing priorities.
Raj and I always mention coming back to this and documenting our journey but never actually do it. Today, I'm feeling inspired so let's see where this takes me. I don't even know where to begin or how to format this.
Raj and I
We are going on almost 7 years of marriage and 8 years of being together. I don't really remember life without Raj. And if I do it feels like a remote memory. He is just there present in my life, never wavering. I think the biggest update is that we have created a human being together and it is no longer him and I only. Amaani is her name and she is almost two! More about her later. Raj is still teaching at Ascend Elementary in Fruitvale. I can proudly say that we are still attempting to live more meaningful lives as individuals and as a couple. Now, Amaani is part of that journey as well and she serves as a constant reminder of that. We have gone through our ups and downs but have always been able openly and honestly communicate through it all. Like many before us have said, marriage with a child changes things, but we are navigating through it. We just recently bought a house in May. It is a few blocks from where we lived before. We never thought that would happen. The main drive was to have a space for Amaani to have a garden and be connected to the Earth and not just concrete. Many more things could be said but main thing is we are good and continue to live a meaningful life.
Amaani
This munchkin of ours was born on December 20, 2014. She is currently 21 months old and is my world. She never ceases to amaze me. She loves to talk and knows Hindi which makes me so happy. Children just absorb the world around us and I don't think I have gotten to fully appreciate that until now. She pays attention to everything we do. She explores things, tells us when she is afraid, is becoming a little more outgoing but still clingy to those she knows more and is always making us laugh. We/I have many goals for her in life but the biggest is for her to be a kind and caring human being. And that she should make the world a better place. Small goals really ;) Becoming a mother has been humbling to say the least. I've always appreciated parents but becoming one makes you really realize what our parents do for us. Thank you to them again! Amaani has her village and we wouldn't be able to do it alone for a second.
Work
When it comes to work, lots of things have changed recently in the past couple of months. I used to be at La Clinica de la Raza as a primary care physician. It is a federally qualified health center and technically my first "real job." I stayed there about 3.5 years and learned so much. Built some amazing relationships with my patients and my colleagues there were family. I reached a point that the anxiety of going into work became extremely high. I didn't know what each day would bring and constantly felt like I was only putting on band-aids to a much bigger problem. I ended up reaching the decision to leave. It was incredibly hard to do and I still wonder if it was the right decision but I needed the mental space to think outside the box. Currently, I'm doing two days a week as the HIV specialist at Tri-City Health in Fremont and one day a week at the UCSF Clinician Consultation Center. I looked back at the old blogs and I'm getting to stick to the goals of post residency and currently have really delved into the HIV world more. I feel like I'm constantly learning and getting to serve a community that is still so often discriminated against.
There is a desire to break free from the system and create something. Ideas that float in my/our head is a space for people to gather, live well together. be in community, grow food, work with our hands, and meditate. One of the main reasons to break away from La Clinica was to have time to do that but the job opportunity at Tri-City came up all of a sudden and I see myself getting caught in the same trap of needing to address the immediate needs in a very limited clinic setting. I don't want to diagnose or put labels on people in what is and isn't wrong with them. I'm a big believer that we are our own biggest healers but we seem to forget that. Part of me knows I'm serving a role and am attempting to be the best doctor I can be, but part of me thinks I'm perpetuating a broken system. I think for now, I'm getting to explore the HIV world deeper which has always been a passion of mine. I also am pushing myself to make connections in our community outside of the clinic setting. Things always organically come up and hopefully one day things will align to create something to live and be well rather than "prescribe" health.
Raj is still at Ascend Elementary, the school he originally started at. I won't say too much on his behalf but it has been amazing to watch him build community and relationships with the kids and families there. We've gotten to see these kids grow. His first class is now heading off to college! There are countless stories to share and feeling grateful at the opportunity to be a part of it.
New Home
Still can't believe we bought a home and the thought of being in debt and bound to a mortgage makes me go crazy at times. As I mentioned above, the main drive was to have our own garden space. Our old home didn't have anything for that and we were watching Amaani become more and more conscious of the world. We wanted her to be connected to the Earth and directly see her connection to where our food comes from. Other motivators were having a space to build community, have more space for our family, it would be an eventual investment. We went back and forth a lot. We put down two or three offers, got two of them and rejected them before we actually went through with it. And even with this, we were so uncertain about the decision. I think I'm slowly coming around to it being worth it but the upfront costs, the unexpected things that we knew nothing about and the things that still keep coming up make me doubt the decision at times. That being said, we picked where we were at because it seemed to be a happy medium of the things we were looking for. We needed it to have a large plot size, I needed a good kitchen and it needed to be in the Fruitvale area. We've done a lot of renovations to it and it is now home. For the garden, we did the sheet mulching and used Planting Justice to plant fruit trees and do the initial clean up for us. We still need to build raised beds, plant fruit trees on the outside of the house but we are on our way! We've had strawberries that have already grown but the worms get to them before we can :( Nature is another natural wonder in its ability to persevere. We still need to make being present in the garden a priority and all the work that comes with it. I know though, whenever I've gone out there, it makes me focus on what is in front of me and is calming.
Random
There has been lots of cooking happening. Knitting started again and now on hiatus again. Hiking unfortunately has slowed down but is always on our minds.
I think that is enough for now. Lots of other random thoughts in my head but will stop. We know we need to have many people over and are slowly going through the list. Stop by at anytime. Hopefully, I/we will actually keep up with the blog to share/document our journey but always a million competing priorities.
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