Do The Next Thing

When I very first started nursing school, I was invited, along with my classmates and our families, to meet the faculty and students from the class ahead of us. I remember sitting in the auditorium, listening to the dean of the college compare our nursing program to mountains, each semester getting more difficult to climb than the last. "You are here," she pointed to the smallest mountain on the slide, "but by the end of the program, you will be here," motioning to the tallest peak of the mountain range. The other teachers and students proceeded to tell us how strenuous the next eighteen months would be, and they weren't wrong. Every class, clinical, and homework assignment felt like it's own mountain, and most days I wondered if I'd made a mistake. If I was cut out for a career that is primarily made up of type A people, when I couldn't care less about color-coding my life.

My innate desire to make a difference and the incredible support of my nursing circle/tribe kept the fire burning. Eighteen months of papers, debates, tests, shadowing nurses who never knew they're getting a student that day, and an unhealthy amount of coffee finally came to an end. All because it was accomplished one day at a time. I'm still amazed that I have been a bedside nurse for over two years, when it feels like I JUST passed the NCLEX.

It begins when you decide to MOVE, to take the next step regardless of how inconsequential it is. When I started as a cardiac nurse, how could I have known all the experience I would get or all the new nurses I would teach? When I applied as a traveler, I didn't exactly plan to work as a float nurse in North Carolina, or take a day job in Arkansas. To be completely honest, I'm terrified of failing! And I don't like change! But isn't that what life is? The medical field is constantly evolving, especially now! Our lives are constantly changing, developing, growing us.

"You can create a plan for your life and then crazy things get thrown at you. And that, by the way, is the closest thing I have to a plan," Nick Miller (New Girl). It's okay to be scared, to be sad, and overwhelmed. It's alright. If I could give you any advice, it would be this. Don't necessarily look at every decisions as only black and white, because choosing one option doesn't make the other one wrong. Just take the next step, do the next thing, and know that you're not alone in this lifelong marathon. We're cheering for you!

Love, Emma Grace and Teddy