Dera's Diary

I had a really good chat with some old friends today. I remember when someone first brought up the possibility of a call and being nervous about it. This was for many reasons, but above all others, after not speaking to people for a while, I think there’s always that fear that the way you used to be able to talk to each other because you were always around each other won’t be there once you’ve had some distance. But that wasn’t the case. After a lot of postponing the call due to conflicting schedules, we finally did it today and I am so glad. There really is something special about talking to people who walked with you during formative and important stages of your life and it’s so special to be able to maintain those relationships in new seasons. They won’t always last, and I’m by no means saying that you should hang on to relationships that aren’t sustainable, but I think some of the best things happen when we step out of our comfort zones. I went to the pub with some friends totally ...

So there this particular justification for colonisation that recently began to irk me. Before this, I always just thought of colonisation as bad. I never thought of the different things that could be argued to be positive that people felt came about because of colonisation and I think as I became exposed to the wide variety of reasons, I began to think that it was bad, but maybe inevitable. A while back, I was talking to some friends about this book called 'A small place' where the author talks about how colonisation harmed her and her people. And some of my friends felt the book was just very dark (which is understandable considering the subject matter), but also kind of hypocritical since it was this very colonisation that gave her access to the skills and language that she then needed to articulate it. But I don't think so. Some people say that without colonisation, countries would not have gained civilisation. But why did there need to be one definition of civilisation ...

Hello.. I was talking to one of my friends this week about my career aspirations. For a long time now, I have known that I wanted to become a doctor, but particularly a doctor that worked with cancer patients and in discovering and testing cancer treatments and therapies. Now, as this passion has been solidified in my mind and heart, I have wrestled with various uncertainties, the main one being whether I was really prepared for the emotional stress of this field. I know medicine can be extremely stressful emotionally no matter what you specialise in, but I think there is something especially gut-wrenching about working in fields that deal with terminally ill patients. Anyway, I've been working through that fear for a while and on not letting the potential diffciulties make me leave behind something that I feel called to. During this particular conversation, I was talking about a new worry that had been introduced to me. Prior to this, I was talking to someone else about how I fe...

Another week, another lesson.... I've been listening to this song recently called 'She used to be mine'. I don't know the whole plot of the Broadway show, but from the info I can get from the song, this woman is pregnant with a child from a toxic relationship and she's talking about the girl she used to be that she has lost. That on its own is really powerful. I think it's important to be able to recognise when you are in a very different season in life and it's crucial to be able to focus on what's ahead without constantly trying to compare it to what used to be. But I also think that sometimes when we're trying to make it through a really difficult season and we finally do, we walk away without ever really addressing the pain and trauma of that season. We are so ready for it to be over and done with, so ready for it to be in the past, that we never acknowledge the sadness and maybe the innoncence and joy that we lost in that season. Not to say th...