The Choice

holding on to? Am I willing to let it go? Agnes asked me now, “How do
you know if there’s something you’re holding on to?”
“It’s a beautiful question. When we’re talking about freedom,
there’s no one-size-ĕts-all. Do you have a guess? Does your gut tell
you that there’s something inside that’s trying to get your attention?”
“It’s a dream.” She said that ever since her cancer diagnosis a few
years ago, and even now that her disease was in remission, she’d been
having a recurring dream. In it she is preparing to perform surgery.
She puts on blue scrubs and a face mask. She tucks her long hair inside
a disposable cap. She stands at a sink, scrubbing and scrubbing her
hands.
“Who’s the patient?”
“I’m not sure. It’s different people. Sometimes it’s my son.
Sometimes it’s my husband or my daughter, or someone from the
past.”
“Why are you performing the surgery? What’s the patient’s
diagnosis?”
“I don’t know. I think it changes.”
“How do you feel when you’re performing the operation?”
“Like my hands are on fire.”
“And how do you feel when you wake up? Do you feel energized,
or tired?”
“It depends. Sometimes I want to go back to sleep so I can keep
working, the surgery isn’t ĕnished yet. Sometimes I feel sad and tired,
like it’s a futile procedure.”
“What do you think this dream is about?”
“I used to want to go to medical school. I thought about applying
aer college. But we had to pay for my husband’s business degree, and
then we had kids, and then the cancer. It was never the right time.
at’s why I wanted to talk to you. Do you think I’m having this
dream because I should pursue medical school now, this late in my