Take the Plunge

The last couple of weeks have been stressful at work, my heart wanting to be home, my head not in the job. I've struggled with keeping the balance and feeling like I'm being the best in both places. It was a hard way to end the year: questioning where I am professionally, feeling completely lost and unfulfilled.

But this is my year of living fearless.

Late one night in October, I took the plunge and submitted my application to grad school. I didn't think about it too much, I just stayed up until 4 in the morning one night filling out applications and intentions and financial aide forms and hit submit. I took my GRE a week later, no studying or preparation involved. I just drove to the test center after work and took the damn test. I emerged 4 hours later feeling like I had just sucked out the contents of my brain with a vacuum. Shawn was completely on board. He's been telling me to apply for years now. I didn't really think that it would happen until I got an email in December saying "Hey. You. Dumbass who has no clue what you're doing. Go register for your classes. You're in". Or something like that.

Everything moved really quickly from that point. Before I even had time to really second guess myself and have my usual neurotic over thinking breakdown, I was a registered graduate student on my way to earning a Master's in Nursing with a concentration in Family Nurse Practitioner. Huh? Books arrived in the mail, assignments were posted, and I spent a ridiculous amount of money at Target on pretty binders and pens and sticky tabs. Because those items are very necessary to higher learning.

I capped off my first week of school with an all day orientation/faculty meet and greet. It was a bit overwhelming and I felt a little out of my league a couple of times throughout the day, sitting in a classroom with incredibly bright, articulate, impressively experienced nurses. But I felt super empowered, too. Energized, motivated, determined. One of the professors commended us for taking this next step. For wanting to be more. For stepping out of our respective comfort zones and willingly going back to being the little fishies in the big grad school pond.

As I drove away that afternoon, mentally exhausted and armed with a massive list of things to do, I felt euphoric, revived, the dark and dreary cloud that had been hanging over me for the last couple of weeks dissipated. This is it, Liv. You're going to the next level. I felt the shift, the switch turned: Beast mode. ON. I don't know how I'm going to make it all work, I'm just going to do it. It's going to take a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and resilience, but I'm going for it. I want more for myself and for my family. I want to do big things, to help people, to have more decision making capabilities, to find things I don't like and make them better. This is me making good on my promise to myself to live a fearless, faithful life. This is me living my dream.