Let's rewind time to about ten months ago. Ty and I had just started our last year at K-State. We'd just finished study abroad. And we were coming startlingly close to having to make a decision about what to do after we graduated. Well... I was having to make a decision. By some strange stroke of fate, Ty's known that is life calling--for whatever strange reason--is to become an accountant. Me, however, well, that's a different story.
Let's rewind about ten years. Fifth grade. Career day. Everyone in the class was supposed to dress up in what they would wear to work every day when they grew up. This was a big decision. Whatever outfit I chose would surely set me up for success and secure my goals. Well, I was torn between being the first woman president, a best-selling author, an award winning motivational speaker, orrrrr being a rancher. The night before my mom helped me find a blazer and a briefcase (because of course that's what a president wears) and they were hanging on the closet door. So what do I do the next morning? I go to my dad's dirty clothes pile, find a diesel/manure/God-knows-what-else-stained shirt and put that on with a pair of holy jeans and some cowboy boots.
History sure does have a way of repeating itself.
So here I am, on the verge of graduation, thinking to myself that I'm too young to be the president, don't have enough land to be a rancher, don't have enough motivation myself to share any with anyone else, not enough time to write that bestseller, and I'm lost about what to do. All I know is that I want to help people. And, because, I'm an extremely literal and tunnel-visioned person, I think, "Aha! I should be a Nurse Practitioner!" (Sometimes I wonder if I'm part teenage boy.)
Now I have a vision, now I have a purpose in life. So I call my family and they give me this look like, "What? You? A nurse?" And I go through telling them what I want to be. And they do their best to be supportive. And somewhere, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking of that fifth grade girl (me) that signed her emails "Future prez, vote for me!" must be shaking her head at me and wondering why I'm not running for mayor or something. Regardless, I press on, determined I have found a career that I will both enjoy and be able to help others.
I apply to Johns Hopkins.
I apply to Vanderbilt.
...
I get in.
...
Here, two of the best schools in the country have accepted me! Johns Hopkins won't work because there is a better school for Ty in Tennessee. Long story short, here we are in Tennessee, I'm dressed up to go to orientation, thinking that whatever outfit I choose will surely secure my future and create my reputation at Vanderbilt University.
But, this time is so much different than that day in 5th grade when changing my mind didn't set my future. This time, instead of helping me find an outfit, people helped me prepare applications. Instead of the thought of a cushy life as president, there's a distinct reality of a comfortable life as a Nurse Practitioner in two short years. There's pressure, consequences, expectations, and so much more.
And there's an unbearable amount of anxiety and depression pressing on me every second I think of stepping foot onto Vanderbilt campus. My reasons for wanting to become a nurse practitioner seem trite. Now, I think of the two years of my life I'll say goodbye to while I force myself through a program that I'm not even 100% sure why I'm going through. Now, I think of my family, and how "emergencies" aren't allowed during this stringent program. Now, I think of agriculture, my first love, and how I'll be saying goodbye to the wide open skies and endless plains. Now, I think of writing. I wonder how I'll ever have time to work for the New York Times or write in the High Plains Journal. I wonder if starting this means saying goodbye to that bestseller. Now I think of my back. Is my back strong enough to be on my feet for twelve hours a day, rushing, carrying, twisting? Now I think of myself. Am I emotionally healthy enough for what is to come.
I don't know the answer.
I prayed and prayed, and I still didn't know the answer.
I don't know the answer.
But I know what I'm good at. I'm good at writing. I'm good at loving others, and I think I know what I want. But I'm not sure. So I would rather spend the next ten years, trying to write that bestseller, wrangling cattle (if my back can take it), working my way up through a company, trying out that dead-end job, than sealing my future off before I even knew the answer.
Maybe in a year I'll have that thought again, that maybe I should be a Nurse Practitioner. Maybe I'll realize that I'm in Tennessee for a reason. Maybe I'll realize my talents will best be used in a hospital. But until then, you'll find me here: in this small apartment, in this shady part of a gigantic city, in my closet-turned-office-space, exploring.
No comments:
Post a Comment