It's always interesting to me how upon meeting people, they are so impressed with my choice of a career. Not really surprising, since nursing has long been considered an autonomous and respectable profession. People are often surprised to find out here I am, just 24 years old, with two years of professional nursing already under my belt. I always want to tell them don't be at all impressed. I don't look in the mirror and see anything to be proud of.

I suppose I am proud of the fact that I didn't play around in college or get a degree simply to get the letters behind my name and be done with it. I did work really hard in college, and all four years I worked toward the specific goal of becoming an RN. I'm proud of it, but also have many regrets because of it. The things I thought were the most important (studying, a career, financial independence), it turns out aren't. I let relationships fall to the wayside in the meantime. I withdrew from many commitments at church. I made little effort to be involved in campus ministries, although to be fair I did attend the Baptist ministry on campus (I know, funny right?!) with a couple of my nursing school buddies.

And now I've come out on the other side. I'm financially independent, although not well off by any means. I have a car and can afford some of the things I used to only dream of in college. Great, right? Yeah. I also have very few friends these days. Sure, there are several long-term friendships I have maintained, which I am ever grateful for. But the last time I made a new friend? I don't know. Probably four years ago when I got into nursing school. I have roommates, but have never made real connections with any of them. All of this is only my fault, I know. My focus was so intent upon school, my job, etc, that I lost any real purpose in life for awhile. It's true, that first year working as a nurse I was depressed, angry, anxious, and didn't seek God.

Depressed because the job and its "perks" weren't what I had expected. Angry, because here I was, having done it all the "right" way, yet life was only happening to everyone else. Anxious most of the time, because I constantly feared messing up in my job. And as a result, I didn't want anything to do with God. Oh, I went to church. But any real relationship? It wasn't there. I gave all outward appearances of being spiritually strong, when in reality I was dying on the inside.

It's been a long road since then, and still a ways to go yet. In many ways, the struggles through the last year of lost relationships, lost grandparents that were a constant source of strength, and just dealing with myself, have been a good thing (or at least a growing thing). I think that when my grandpa died, it shook me out of a really selfish state of mind I had been living in for quite some time. And just when I thought it was done and God had "dealt with me," (as if it was all about me, right?) my grandma died. It forced me to look up. To re-evaluate everything. I sought God for the first time in a couple of years. I can't say I'm the same person today that I was nine months ago.

There are still issues in my life with bitterness, anxiety, and just a general struggle with being content. Being 24 years old, I could throw a book at you filled with all the things I thought my life would be at this point. My ultimate goal was never that of an independent woman, even though that financial independence and stability was important to me all through school. And yet here I am. And I don't know how soon that will change, if it ever will. I've watched nearly all of my friends get married and have babies, some of them having their second babies already. No, this isn't all about my being single and alone, as that isn't even something I dwell on most days. But as far as the journey in life, and what my intentions were in starting out, sometimes it's hard to come to terms with. Nursing was just something I was pursuing because it was there. I didn't think I'd have to do it for very long, yet here I am.