Sara Ann O'Sullivan

Last week was an exam week so I missed the Friday Newsletter. Exam week is always an interesting one. Here, we call our exams minis and the week leading up to the mini is the mini week. It may not have the exam itself in it, usually, the exam ends up being Monday or Tuesday, but the week is always interesting. Emotions run high, and usually one of us finds ourselves with cold-like symptoms. Some of us don’t even see people for that week. All normal activity usually stops and all that seems to matter is that exam. We are taught here, that the most important exam in your life is the next one you are about to take. The past and future exams do not matter. It is the one right in front of us.

Which when you think about it, is kind of like everything in life. The things that matter more, are the thing right in front of you. Living in the moment is something we are told to do but it is so tough. Stressors in life can be found in so many things and so many formats/edits (Was that a writing pun 😉🧐)

Speaking of writing, editing is one of the stressors in my life. Working on the new poetry book has caused me to doubt some of my writing skills. There is something about being a writer and wanting to show honesty in their writing but also not wanting to show it. It is almost a question of how far we go. How raw do we attempt to go and if we go too real, would people still want to read it? And that is why we have honest family and friends who pre-read our work before it gets to the publishing location. If my sister told me, my work was not good enough, I would take it harshly at first but then go back to the drawing board. Which I guess brings us back to the topic of stress.

We can not control the amount or type of stress in our lives, but we can choose who we share it with. Medical School, Work, Home-life, and so on. It is all about how we share our lives. If we take the time, to open up with the people close to us and try to understand each other, we can support each other through life’s toughest challenges. No matter what they are.

Happy Father’s Day to everyone this weekend, if you are a father yourself, here is a special shoutout to you.

And to everyone else who follows me on this adventure of blogging and writing, thank you for sticking with me through the stressors.