Just surviving is getting old, I want to live again. With less than 7 days left of this class, I can’t wait. I get an added study day this week since there’s labor day so I am going to treat myself to lunch with a friend to watch the Buckeye game without guilt. I calculated my grade and as long as I pass this one, I’m still good for the final. I’m focused on killing the final since it is 45 percent of the grade. I’ve found it much harder to sleep so little now. My brain isn’t working as well on so little sleep and I’ve gotten to a point that I’m drinking coffee and still falling asleep. It is apparent that my body has had enough.
To stay motivated, I’ve made a vision board. I have pictures of my family, my favorite quotes, and pictures of home. The Columbus skyline, my dream residency program, and the car that is waiting for me to graduate are helping me to stay driven. I also added pictures of the grave circumstances that my ancestors had to endure so that I can be here. It keeps me focused. In a land so foreign, stolen from their homes, they were killed for thinking of, not less trying my current circumstances. The pictures of the shackles and chains, the scars and the pain, progress to picket signs, to marches and sit-ins, to water hoses, snarling dogs, and lynchings… I can’t quit, I can’t rest, I have to survive. They gave so much more just for literacy. I’m complaining about reading, when 150 years ago, reading would have gotten me killed. This fight isn’t over. With all that has happened across the country in the last month, I have no choice but to succeed. For others, failure can be redirected to a career change. For me, failure is letting my family, my ancestors, and all of those who look like me, dreaming of going into medicine down. The yoke that I bear isn’t mine, it’s one that belongs to millions of people, present and past, dead and alive. This is my contribution to the ever-present struggle against the isms that we so often try to ignore. My success isn’t for me, its for all who were denied the simple human right to an education, some of which are much more present than we want to acknowledge. So living, for me, has to wait, I’ll continue to just survive. My survival is only the beginning for so many others…
