The interview season is in full swing for Alison. We're about 18 months from graduation and her schedule is full of calls, phone interviews, and soon we'll be travel to conduct site visits. It's very exciting to finally see all of her work paying off, but it's also exciting for us on the social front as well.

Medical school and residency are not conducive to a robust social life. Certainly there is time for socialization and many of her classmates have been successful in pursing social adventures. However, the changing nature of the schedule, along with onerous work and long hours preclude us from having the type of social life that we desire.

All of that is about to change. In recent weeks we've been talking about our future and our plans, and we've come to the realization that our lives are about to fundamentally change in a way that we've never experienced in our married life together. Our schedule is about to be our own... how will we use it?

I think that Alison and I both share a deep longing to be an active family in our parish and to connect with other young families. We've had some success so far, but not in the way that I experienced as a child growing up. After Mass we'd always spend time standing around and chatting with friends from the parish, our priests would be regular guests in our home, and we often went out and about town on errands.

Now that we have a family, and now that we have two cars again, I'd like to see us step into that level of engagement. It's the way we as humans are made. We're social beings who long for interaction, engagement, and connection. I want to share our table with friends and help in the local community.

A social life as a family is very different from the social life of a student or a young professional. It's refined and has the objective of engagement as opposed to interior objectives. Having a solid social life is more than just beneficial for the parents; it's a great life for the children who get to experience what it means to be human.

Tags: Community Friendship