Dear Clinic - I May Have Pre-Maturely Judged You

So I am a firm believer that there are two types of fear. Fear that immobilizes you and fear that motivates you. Some of my greatest successes have been hard fought battles against the ever present reality that if I dont give it my all, I wont make. Yes, its a struggle. Yes, it is emotionally exhausting. But the moments I recall with such clarity, where I was proud of what I had accomplished, came hand and hand with overcoming a goal that was a struggle and seemed just out of reach. I know that with enough hard work, you can come back from huge deficits. My entire University career is a constant reminder of such. I think that you need to fear failure and have goals that stretch you beyond your current reach in order to grow. But set unreachable goals and suddenly you are paralyzed and unable to achieve anything. If something is going to worry and scare me, I'd much rather come out the other side more than what I started as.

Clinic for the first bit was border-lining on being too much. I felt constantly out of my depth and that it was past my reach. Has clinic really changed much? No. For the most part its still just as bureaucratic and frustrating as ever. But the fact that it has set the expectations so high has caused an effect I didnt quite expect. 

I feel put together in ways that only a few short weeks ago I felt broken. And this feeling of unmatched wholeness is new to me. Always the realist, I'm well aware that reality kinda blows. But because clinic is such a task master, it left me with only two options: 1. Fail miserably and crumble away under the pressure or 2. Let that pressure turn me into something better than I started. 

Am I the picture of perfection? HA. Hardly. But I feel balanced and happy. I'm busy, I'm tired and a lot of the time I still question whether I'm gonna make it - but as of yet I'm keeping it together (except when I'm shirking my responsibilities like tonight). 

One of the biggest fears I have is that dental school and being in Massachusetts will irreparably change the very person I am for the worst. And this moment, this period of time gives me hope. Maybe I wont come out the other side as a completely unrecognizable shell of the person I started as. Because I rather liked who I was before I came here. 

Will I probably be cursing clinic shortly? H Yes. But for now I'm reveling in this feeling. However short-lived it may be.