I’ve never really thought that I was great at anything. I’m good at some things, but greatness, mastery, excellence – those words have never really described my skillset. And I’m pretty OK with being pretty OK. Being the best at something seems like a whole lot of stress, and my goal in life is to limit stress, not encourage it.
That being said, if there is one thing I’ve taken great pride in doing well {besides snacking}, it’s school. I’ve always thought of myself as a great student. I go to class. I get good grades. I do the work. I study and study and study. From elementary school through college, I defined myself by my projects and papers and grades. So naturally, it was absolutely devastating to me when I was not accepted into nursing school. I don’t mean to sound stuck up, but I’d never really been rejected before, so I guess a huge part of me just expected that I would get in. But I didn’t. Suddenly the old adage “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” seemed to hold a lot more weight. I cried like a baby and for the first time in a long time, felt like my future was pretty bleak. I was a failure.
At that point in my life, I already had two young children, and I felt quite desperate to start making further steps toward a career and start defining my worth as a financial contributor. I was already struggling, emotionally, with feeling a bit useless, for lack of a better term. As much as I felt that staying home with my kids was practical and wonderful and important, I was also battling {and occasionally still do} an internal demon that told me my work was unimportant, not so wonderful, and more of a burden than something practical. But, plans changed. I didn’t get in and after mourning that fact for several days, I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and shift my decisions to make sense with my reality.
Sometimes our efforts don’t pay off. Sometimes things are out of our hands and off the table. But life goes on. What I mourned was Plan A, but what I got was Plan B. I don’t remember how long I was upset by the change in plans, but I do remember eventually waking up one day, taking a deep breath, and giving myself a silent pep talk. This is my life, my only life. I can be ruled by failures or I can be content with my present and adapt my future.
It’s important to think ahead, to plan ahead. But it’s also important to remain flexible and adaptable. No quote summarizes this better than that from the movie Dan in Real Life. As the movie concludes, the protagonist writes this in his column:
“I want to talk to you about the subject of plans… life plans and how we all make them, and how we hope that our kids make good, smart, safe plans of their own. But if we’re really honest with ourselves, most of our plans don’t work out as we’d hoped. So instead of asking our young people, ‘What are your plans? What do you plan to do with your life?’, maybe we should tell them this: Plan… to be surprised.”
I’ve always found that quote to be beautiful and liberating. Many of my friends and family have probably heard me utter “plan to be surprised” a time or two. Because the thing is, we can schedule and plan our future down to the very day, but more often than not, life moves us in a different direction. Sometimes riding the wave is fun, sometimes it’s downright difficult. But hopefully, we can find the healthy balance of holding on to what may have been, and having peace and happiness with what is.
As for me, I adapted. I retook two chemistry classes. I adjusted my timeline. And best of all, I had the birth of my dreams and a third sweet, squishy baby.
I wish I could say I got into nursing school, but I don’t know quite yet – I just finally reapplied.
