Why here? Why now?

And I stood there thinking as I said goodbye

Today's the first day of the rest of my life

I'm gonna stop lookin' back and start movin' on

And learn how to face my fears

Love with all of my heart, make my mark

I wanna leave something here

- Rascal Flatts

I've been meaning to start writing in this blog since I made the decision to go back to school a few many months ago. You know what got in the way? Life. I mean, there is clearly extra time in the day when you have 4 kids (ages 6, 4 5, 3, and 8 12 mon), homeschool, work almost full time, lead a cub scout den, hangout on a budget forum, and do countless other things. Oh, and Facebook. It sucks up a lot of my time. (And this last semester I was busy with a statistics course.) I've thought of a million things to come here and write about, but just never got around to it. Well.... I'm done with that. I'm here, NOW. I have so many things I want to say, but I think it will be easier on everyone for me to break it down into a few different posts.

For now, I'd like to reference the above quote from Rascal Flatts' "When the Sand Runs Out":

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

In reality, this could probably be said about any day. Every day gives us the opportunity to change, evolve, and grow.

I'm gonna stop lookin' back and start movin' on

And learn how to face my fears

 But today - today feels like I walked through a door and I'm not looking back. I'm preparing to embark on a journey that will change.my.life. I have evolved so dramatically in the last 7 years or so, that my old self wouldn't recognize the current me. Thankfully, the love of my life has been on board throughout the entire transformation. He's quite the keeper!

I used to be afraid. I had a lot of anxiety about not being good enough or smart enough to take care of people. It's funny that I felt that way because I'm really smart. I graduated first in my class in paramedic school, and second in my class (by 0.001) in nursing school. When a topic interests me, I can pull information from my brain like it's nothing. And yet, I was afraid. And because I lacked confidence in myself, I was a terrible paramedic. I was smart, and I took good care of people, but I only did what I *had* to do. And I'm a great nurse, but I never was interested in learning about the critical care aspects of emergency nursing. Except cardiology - it made sense to me, and so I was good at it. Good at the medications, and good at reading EKGs.

***
UPDATE:
I'm not really sure where I was going with this post. I started it back in the Fall of 2015. I know that I was looking for a good way to start this blog. So here it is:

I just finished the required updated statistics course, I'm waiting for one more letter of recommendation and I have one more essay to finish before I can submit my application in a couple weeks. I'm scared, nervous, excited, and can't freakin' wait - all at the same time. In a week, I will celebrate 5 years since I discovered midwifery was in my heart, and I look forward to that now being the anniversary of when I send off my application.

So here's to the journey that lies ahead.... and now, back to my neonatal resuscitation class....