Why I started this blog:
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| Sometimes my hair is straight; other times it's wavy. My pseudonym is Dr. D; I also go by Monique. |
I was once a well-rounded person. I had aspirations of saving the world, making it beautiful through art and design, falling in love, and raising a family. I had a knack for photography and painting, but also a mind geared toward the natural sciences. Ultimately, I found myself on the pre-med track in college and it became ever so hard to keep up my other skill sets.
Fortunately, I was able to find a loving man to marry and support me as I morphed from medical student, intern (A.K.A. scut monkey), resident, and now bona fide physician. Somewhere in there I managed to gain the more important title of mother. Balancing work and family was difficult to say the least.
That's when I developed my 'decorno' addiction. I needed an outlet, an escape from the craziness that was my life. I turned to websites about interior design, DIY projects, and style advice. . . when people weren't looking. To me it made perfect sense. I had been taught that for every critical decision there exists an efficient, evidence-based approach that consistently yields good results. Normally that logic is applied to managing a heart attack or stroke, but I was beginning to find that if I did the research and learned from the victories/failures of bloggers I could reintroduce design and beauty to my life outside the hospital while saving both money and time. That was critical to me.
Why did I try to hide this aspect of my life? I was afraid people wouldn't understand me from either side of the spectrum. I had reasons to believe that because, on the one hand, the expectation among many doctors is that you commit yourself to medicine and generally neglect life outside the hospital. Anything beyond that might be considered abnormal. On the other hand, I kinda felt like the dweeb who goes to the mall to catch a glimpse of the cool kids whenever I invited myself to some stylish person's homepage. After all, I practically spent the past TWELVE years with my nose in the books and that didn't exactly place me on the cool kid scene. It was also tricky to discuss my love for home-life when I was usually away at work.
At the end of residency, I announced my commitment to find a balance between home and work by going part-time. This was met by great disappointment from my colleagues, the worst criticism came, ironically, from women. Being a stay-at-home mom, even part-time, was no vacation either. I quickly found that many people had a habit of assuming my time wasn't valuable, and that motherhood resigned me to a life of frumpy clothes and a home design revolving around cartoon characters. Around this same time, my colleagues were buying McMansions while we purchased a 1969 funk-palace that needed some TLC to say the least.
I decided to start up this blog and 'come out' as it were, following a week of receiving unwanted pity from all sorts of people. I hope to show them, myself, and others that a "work/life balance" is possible, that it can be done fabulously, and doesn't have to break the bank. Should be fun.
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