Page 32 - Voices 2024-10

Quarter Note

Minding the Gaps
Why should I feel guilty about doing something that brings me joy?

In September 2023, I decided to go back to school to become a certi-
fied medical biller and coder. I’d been out of work for a year prior to my David Freedman
return to college, and I was fed up trying to find employment in fields
outside of medical and general transcription. Simply put, nothing was
working, and I felt lost and confused. I had many qualifications that
would put me in good stead with the right company or organization,
but nothing was clicking. So back to school I went, and for the most
part, it was a tremendously positive experience. I received high marks in
my classes, but more importantly, the subject matter was engaging and
allowed me to expand my skill sets in several different ways.

Much later, I realized that going back to school also restored my confi-
dence in seeking out and completing challenging tasks, an important
factor since looking for work was one of the major stumbling blocks I
still faced. Yet despite restoring my confidence, one of the things that
bothered me during this period was that I was not necessarily focusing
as much attention on my writing as I thought I should. I knew that I
needed to find a day job commensurate with my talents and abilities,
and certainly medical billing and coding would be an appropriate
choice for me to pick.

But the one thing you sacrifice toward learning a new skill is time, and
in going back to school, I knew that I might not work as hard toward
being a professional writer. This turned out to be the case. My blog
was put on the back burner, and most of my writing consisted of me
either posting answers on Quora or occasionally working in my journal.
Looking back at the progress on my blog, it bothered me how long the
intervals were between posts. It wasn’t until I finished up with most of
my schoolwork that I realized I needed to be more forgiving to myself.

Even when I started worrying about the times between writing gigs,
I’d remind myself that at least some of my skills had been enhanced
through creating essays for my classes. In fact, those reports were often
the most enjoyable assignments I had since they allowed me to be cre-
ative. Furthermore, in my coding class, my public speaking skills came
to the forefront. For the first two terms, as a final project, my teacher
had us create videos describing how we would code for different dis-
eases or conditions.

I jumped at the opportunity since this utilized my writing and public
speaking talents inan educational manner. In short order, I created
videos about coding for AIDS as well as Moebius syndrome, the condi-

32 Voices!