Resolutions Tridux: Internship Pwned Edition

Oh hi!!

You know how I was all freaked out about internship? You know how clinical psychology internship match rates are a horror show?  You know how I practically turned myself inside out in anxious anticipation for like five months preparing applications, waiting interminably, going on interviews, and waiting interminably AGAIN??  You know how I was worried not only for myself, but also for my wonderful classmates?

Remember that??

OHMYGOD GUYS WE ROCKED IT.

I thought my year in review was awesome.  I've thought a lot of things were awesome in the last few months.

But then my cohort had a 100% internship match rate.

You know what's awesome?

Emphasis on the THIS.

Also!  It is no small thing that I was, in the eleventh hour, actually pretty successful in achieving that terrifyingly ambitious resolution I made about accepting the outcome of the process.

After (re)setting my intentions and writing my little post last week, I stayed up until I was tired, had the somewhat crappy night of sleep I anticipated (but still slept a bit!), and after being so restless that I spent some time aimlessly dicking around on the internet I (mercifully) fell back asleep until 15 minutes before the deadline by which applicants were to be notified of their results.  Having decided I wasn't allowed to check my email unless I was perfectly calm, I meditated for a while.  While I sat, I pictured every possible outcome of the match and imagined myself smiling.

After ending my meditation, Boyfriend sweetly held my hand as I opened the email delivering the news of my, and our, future.  Because practice (in many senses of the word) produces positive results, I read the message, turned to him, and smiled with the deepest sense of satisfaction and gratitude I've felt in a long time.

My site, like all sites, is imperfect in some ways.  But I am so, so happy this process worked out the way it did, and that feeling of warmth, relief, and happiness hasn't gone away.  Upon besting other major milestones of graduate school, I've experienced abrupt, bracing thrills of accomplishment, only to almost immediately descend back into the worry, stress, and exhaustion that has become all too quotidian for the last four years of my life as I move ever on to the next thing.  I'm so glad I paused for some breaths.  I'm really proud of how I handled this.  This way, I can see how truly things have worked out the way they were supposed to and be glad for it.

....Of course, shortly after reading my results, I logged into gchat to discover that I had inadvertently completely freaked out my classmates.  See, "notification by 10 am" policy notwithstanding, our emails arrived around 8:30 am.  Having not heard from me for almost two hours, my classmates were convinced of the worst.  Being deeply empathic people, they were concerned to the point that the girlfriend of one of my classmates, who also happens to be one of my immensely sweet, kind, big-hearted friends, had consulted with said classmate and left me a voicemail while I meditated in which she offered her support, thinking it would help to be able to talk to someone not immediately embroiled in the ongoing trauma that is APPIC.

(Sorry about that, guys.)

That minor interlude aside, it feels amazing to know that we've all been successful together.  We've worked so hard for so long, and now we truly see the light at the end of this tunnel, beckoning us.  Next year, I can take a crappy commute and not the universe's biggest stipend, because the way this process worked out, I get to spend the next year in the same city as most of my classmates.  We get another year together when with other outcomes we would have dispersed.  I get a summer.  Boyfriend and I don't have to move.

I get to stay here.

I get to be in this city, every day.

It was only after accepting that I might have to leave and then being granted the ability to stay that I could confront how broken-hearted I would have been to depart.  I'm not done with this city.  I love this city.  The longer I'm here, the more and more convinced I am that I'll stay.

Oh I am so grateful for how things have worked out, in so many ways.

{Heart}

May the Algorithm Be Ever in Your Favor, or: Resolutions Redux, Internship Terror Edition

Well hello.

And here we are.

Tomorrow is Match Day.  Which means I'm in the home stretch of my biggest New Year's Resolution challenge to accept this process as fully and as Buddhistly as possible.

A moment of honesty: at times, I have failed pretty miserably at this resolution.

I maintained a reasonably measured and calm stance through most of my interviews, only to collapse in a heap all of a sudden 2/3 of the way through (in the comfort of my home, happily, but still), totally overwhelmed by all the variables I would have to consider before submitting my ranks.

I dissected and agonized over those variables ad infinitum and asked for input from Boyfriend and every one of my parents and yet felt weirdly blasé when I punched in my ranks a few days before the deadline.  Only to then freak out that I was so un-freaked out.

I have, for the most part, hostilely and ruthlessly punched thoughts of this looming Match Day down into the depths of my subconscious every time they've peaked above the surface because I just haven't been able to figure out a way to comfortably sit with them.

And as I finally arrived at this week, all I could think was, "Jesus I wish I could just be knocked out until Friday morning."

Perhaps I'm being hard on myself.  I've been about as graceful through this process as I could.  Even so, these have not been my most sparkling or most mindful moments.

All the more reason to face these final hours as the challenge they truly are.  Earlier today I contemplated the anticipation of the evening ahead of me, very reasonably expecting near-constant agitation and a fitful night of sleep (if I sleep at all, which I very likely may not), and felt irritable, resentful, and exhausted.  But on the subway home tonight, I decided I would take this as a challenge to my abilities to peacefully embrace what the universe offers me.

After all, nights like these are rare in most lives, in which one is so very aware that life today and life tomorrow will be different.  I'm not likely to have many opportunities to practice grace, peace, and acceptance under these circumstances.

So again: here we are.  I'm going to save my hopes for my colleagues, who are brilliant and deserving of happiness, success, and the validation that a Match will bring.  My challenge to myself is to release my expectations for my own internship outcome and accept what I'm offered tomorrow with gratitude.

May the odds be ever in our favor.

{Hearts}






THAT'S RIGHT I READ THE HUNGER GAMES.  WHAT.