My schedule was as demanding as it had ever been — long surgical shifts, overnight call rotations, quick meals eaten over patient files.

Nothing about the work changed.

But everything about the life around the work had changed completely, and it took me a while to name how.

I no longer had to apologize to anyone simply for doing my job.

No one was waiting at home to greet my exhaustion with a list of grievances.

No one was keeping a private ledger of the evenings my work had cost them, to be produced against me later.

No one was using the thing I was proudest of as evidence that I was failing them.