A Nursie and a Mommy

You know when you’re little how people ask you what you want to be when you grow up? Well I wanted to be a nursie and a mommy. As I cruised through my rebellious teen years and straight into getting married at 19, I figured the nurse part would never happen, but I had big plans for being a mom. And now that I was married, that would happen.  But wait… back up! Did you catch that word, “rebellious” in that sentence? I’m also very competitive. Put those 2 together and you’ve got fireworks!

When I was a teen I had shared my dreams with my bff Cheryl. Talk about competitive… that described our friendship! She found out I liked a guy… she went after him and got him. I pretended it didn’t hurt. We both wanted to be on drill team, so I lost weight and got on drill team. I’m sure that whole senior year was one big hurt to her because I’d gotten the one thing we’d both wanted since freshman year. So one day when I was living in Oklahoma (and I remember this conversation like it was this morning), she called and said “guess what”? Those were scary words when she said them. “I’m going to vocational school to become an L.V.N.”!  WHAT!?! She had NEVER said anything about wanting to be a nurse.

I hung up and immediately called the local college. It’s June and classes start in August and their nursing program is designed to really be a 3 year program even though it’s a 2 year associates program. I was told that it would be impossible to get in without any prerequisites and that the interviews were long over anyhow… the year was full. I would have to spend a year taking pre-requisites. Well THAT would never do! I asked if there were any exceptions and they said, “score above a…  (I forget the number) on the entrance exam and you’ll earn an interview! Now I come from a long line of non-college attendees and so had never taken any college prep classes or any extra classes in high school that would help me, I was smart though… I had finished all my required high school work and could have graduated as a junior, but there was drill team! And there were friends! And there was the fact that I’d started Kindergarten a year early and didn’t WANT to be a 16 year old HS grad, so I’d taken all fun classes my senior year and was NOT college ready... And I am HORRIBLE at math. So didn’t have any great expectations to score that magical number other than praying fervently!

So I pray! And I take the test. This was in Oklahoma at a college where the majority of students graduate with a major in agriculture or animal science. It’s small. That meant getting my results back quickly was a cinch. I expected a letter… that’s what they told me to expect. I got a call. I had not only beaten that magic number, but had crushed it! It turned out that only one person in the next years nursing program had gotten a higher score. I got my interview and got into the program. I had to carry 18 credits per semester plus summer school, but I got in. Cheryl never did go to nursing school. I really did feel bad about that, but I also knew, she never had really wanted to be a nurse in the beginning so the drive to succeed in that area wasn’t there for her.

During those early years of my 20’s is when my family began to say I had the type of brain that found solutions. It’s true even to this day. Whenever I want something, I put my mind to it and figure out how to make it happen. Now that I’m middle-aged, I’ve come to realize that the only thing that’s ever stopped me from reaching a solution to a roadblock is PEOPLE! (…or God! But mostly people!) Sometimes their words cause me to feel unsure of myself and I succumb to my insecurities and “change my mind”. (This really makes it my own fault.) Sometimes I just cannot “help” them see that I know what I’m doing and have intelligently and carefully thought through the process, and because they are somehow intertwined with the outcome, I am blocked from going down what I KNOW is the right road.

Now don’t get me wrong! I’ve made too many mistakes! Some of them are just a course of life… everyone makes mistakes. Some of my mistakes were total derailing train wrecks. But the thing is that when I make a mistake and realize it, my brain is always working on how to overcome that particular roadblock, correct it, learn from it, amend for it to whomever I’ve wronged, and get back on the right path. It just seems that the only mistakes I haven’t been able to overcome are because of other people’s inability to help me remove the roadblock and move on. It’s like they WANT to see me lying there miserable in my failure, squirming under their judgmental stares. They thrive on it. They can’t (or won’t) see that I WANT to make things right.

What I’ve decided though is that I want to lead a joyful, happy, fulfilled life despite the ongoing trials in my life. I have to learn to walk around them and keep going. It’s just that it’s so hard! I feel certain people’s stares boring into the back of my skull! Just seeing that I CAN still be joyful in the midst of some hard, hard times makes them try that much harder to crush my spirit.

I choose today to be at peace with myself. I choose to know that I am a good person despite my very human mistakes. I have been blessed in SO MANY ways and I will be joyful in that knowledge. I have a brain that figures out ways to make things happen. So I will choose to make NEW and different things happen in my life. Those people who’ve stumbled me will have to live with their own mistakes for blocking my God given path in life. I am a creature of God who is beautiful and talented and with God, I will succeed.

And about being a nursie and a mommy? You’ve hear the nursie story.  You’ll hear the mommy story next, so be watching!