I landed back in the US on a Monday after nine days abroad.
I could have gone straight back to work Tuesday. Opened Epic first thing. Started chipping away at everything that had accumulated while I was gone.
Instead I took my daughter to her annual medical appointments.
She’s been going to this clinic every year since she was born – sixteen years of the same routine. And somewhere along the way we turned it into something we actually look forward to. Starbucks before the appointments. Wiener’s Circle for lunch. Molly’s Cupcakes for dessert. A full day together, just the two of us, that happens to include a lot of waiting rooms.
Her appointments thankfully went well. She’s stable. We ate our cupcakes and drove home.
I was back at my computer by 3pm catching up on patient calls and results. Then I went to my other daughter’s softball game. Then book club with friends. In bed by 10:30.
Up at 5:30 the next morning from jetlag, earlier than I wanted but productive in a way I didn’t expect. A short nap in the afternoon when I needed it. Back on Epic in the evening. And then, for the first time in almost two weeks, back to work on my business.
I want to tell you something about how that day felt.
It felt normal. In the best possible way.
What Changed From the Past
A few years ago, maybe even a year ago, coming back from a trip like this would have felt like a reckoning. The backlog of messages. The patients waiting. The colleague’s work still on my plate. The guilt of having been gone. The anxiety of what I’d find when I opened my inbox.
I did open my inbox. There were urgent requests for new patients to be added – several of them. The kind of messages that used to spike my cortisol before I even got through the first one.
I read them. I thought about it. I agreed to add one patient this week and one next week, an hour before clinic each time. That felt manageable and fair.
One of those patients ended up deciding to wait. And I noticed something when I read that message.
Relief, yes. But not the desperate relief of someone who was barely holding it together.
Just, okay. That works too.
Why This Return Was Different
I’ve been thinking about why this return felt different.
Part of it is the trip itself. I went fully and came back fully. There was no half-presence on either end – no working from the hotel lobby, no checking messages at dinner, no guilt spiral when I landed.
But part of it is something that’s been building for longer than the trip.
I’m looking at the extra work on my plate differently than I would have before. For the next several months, maybe longer, my days will be fuller than I’d like. More patients. More calls. More administrative weight from a transition that wasn’t planned.
And I’m choosing to see it as an opportunity.
Not to work more forever. But to be compensated well for a season of harder work, to set myself up financially, to build toward a future where I have even more flexibility than I have now. Maybe in five years I work even fewer days. Maybe I have more choices than I can see from here.
That reframe, from burden to opportunity, isn’t denial. It’s not pretending the extra work isn’t real.
It’s deciding how I want to think about something I can’t fully control.
That’s the work. Not just in coaching. In medicine. In parenting. In every season that asks more of you than you planned to give.
You decide ahead of time how you want to show up.
And then you show up.
If you’re a physician mom navigating a season that’s asking more of you than you expected, I want you to know that how you think about it matters as much as what you do about it.
That’s exactly what I help physician moms work on.
Free guide here. Or if you’re ready to talk, click here to book a free consultation.
