My husband, Sisyphus

I have been MIA for a few...weeks. It's because the only thing I have really been thinking about lately is the one thing I really don't want to write about...because it's hard. It's about Ben's application to medical school. The abridged account (very abridged) is that Ben has always wanted to be a doctor, majored in biology in undergrad--pre-med, took his first MCAT in spring 2005, his second in 2007, and has been applying to medical school ever since. In the last 3 years he has been wait-listed 3 times. And here we are now, round 3, waiting, waiting for a letter in the mail, for a phone call, a lightening bolt, something, anything. We could hear an answer off of the wait-list up until the day before classes start...in August. An MCAT is only good for 3 years so Ben is already studying for an MCAT for a med school application for a class that will start in August 2011. These are the circumstances. The day-to-day is that Ben goes to work, 40 hour weeks, and then studies for the next MCAT when he gets home from work until we go to bed (when he doesn't find a letter in the mailbox). I drive home from work and when I see the lamp lit in our dining "room" I know he is studying at the kitchen table and know that, "today, he didn't get in."



Our friend Niky told Ben that this process, Ben's life, is like the life of Sisyphus, a king in Greek mythology. If you don't know the story, it's very despairing. As a punishment, Sisyphus is cursed to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down, every time, for eternity. Now, I don't hang my hat on Greek mythology, or luck, or bad luck. I hang it on faith and hope in God, who loves us like children. But I don't always know what that looks like, practically or even theoretically. Sometimes we are negative about this whole process, "Why doesn't God answer our prayers (and not just prayers to get in, prayers for His will to be revealed enough to us that we would walk on the path He desires for us and know that we are doing so). Sometimes we are positive, we thank and praise God for our jobs, our marriage, and that all of this hardship is developing in us patience and character and is preparing us for an unknown future. Sometimes, we don't know what to think and we crawl into bed with bowls full of ice cream, delirious from study and prayer and watch Pirates of the Caribbean until it's way past our bedtime. Sometimes we are guilty because these times are so trying for us but we remember we are healthy and employed and married and feel foolish because there is so much heartache around us in the homeless that live on our street and families in our church. But God, in all of His wisdom (and for reasons I don't understand...yet) has laid this before us at this time in our life. It is our current burden, our current call to trust in Him for our fulfillment instead of in an acceptance letter that may or may not come, and MCAT score that may or may not be high. This is where my head and heart have been the past 2 weeks, the past 7 years.


Benny studying for the MCAT with kitty