When Two Worlds Intersect

Francis Day (American, 1863-1925); "the piano lesson"

Joining my husband's world and embracing it doesn't mean I leave my own talents and ambitions at the door.  It's not dropping them off, losing my self-identity, or in effect, not being "me" anymore.  It's not an unreasonable choice of mine, and it's not a burden my husband has placed on me.  It's all part of an amazing role that I happily fill, and it started the day I married this man, if not earlier.

But with it comes balance, and creativity.  It takes imagination to figure out how to pursue my talents and interests while I'm supporting my husband in his. In the beginning, when he was in medical school, I was still in college (crazy, huh?), and then when I graduated, I used my degree in music to pay the bills.  So really, my talents had a huge impact on his career when you think about it.  And since I was deeply involved in the musical world, it intersected with the medical world in some really fun and interesting ways.

For instance, early on I gained a medical student as a piano student.  Sometimes I'd teach him at the medical school on the crummy piano in the lounge, and sometimes he'd come to our tiny apartment.  Most of the time he hadn't practiced (and for good reason, when in the world would he have had time when his hands were in the anatomy lab every living hour?).  Looking back, I think that experience was hilarious--me trying to fix his fingering and lack of musicality, while he was just needing a creative outlet, a break from his strenuous work in school.

That was just the start of the merging of two completely different worlds.  And maybe that's not the answer to how to blend these opposite interests, but it was a start.  And there's plenty more stories where that came from.