Countdowns.

When you start a countdown or a pie chart or fill in your calendar for the grand total of 487 days or 70 weeks, or 16 months or 1 year and 4 months or whatever, you make it your business to tick off the days.  And I did.  To the chagrin of most of my nursing school classmates.  It was, in it's own way, a life vest for me.  My obsessive counting gave me a way to feel like I was actually accomplishing something, especially on the days I was just so very thankful to have survived. Sometimes making it through the day WAS the accomplishment. But now that 108 days have passed since my pinning day, I cannot believe that it went by so fast! I graduated on May 3rd.  By June 10th I started my first job.  Now I am having to count BACKWARD to keep track of where the time has gone!  Eight years of study, prayer, work, prayer, crying, complaining and more study (with lots of parenting, wifing and familying mixed in there) the final goal has been accomplished. Wearing a big fat RN badge feels pretty darn amazing. There is still so much new. Going to school to earn your RN is very different than actually being one.  In fact, there are days when I wonder just exactly what I DO know. It's good, satisfying work.  My heart still leaps, even in the middle of a terrible shift, at the fact that God has granted me this amazing gift.  I hope that never stops.

What's my next countdown? 47 days until my first medical mission trip to the jungle of Honduras to work alongside my dear friend Erin in Clinica El Arbol de la Vida.

It's a good year.


P.s.
On the day of my graduation an extraordinary thing happened (as if the day itself wasn't extraordinary enough). While I stood at the podium waiting for my turn to be pinned I stared across the stage at the man without whom I could never have survived RN school (my husband, in case anyone was actually curious who that man may be). Suddenly I heard my nickname shouted from the audience.  Not just any nickname.  One that belongs only to me given by only one person.  While I turned to find the face that matched the voice, a switch took place. As I waved to Dannielane in the audience, blown away that my dear friend flew from Washington to be at my graduation, I turned around to see that my very best girlfriend was standing where my husband had been.  All the way from Honduras!!  She actually got to pin me!  It was, as they say, a dream come true.  God is so generous.  The days that followed were filled with celebrations, family and friends.  The four amigas (Erin, Dannie, Sonia and I) got to spend quality time together doing crazy girlie stuff and just cramming in as much talk/tears/laughter as we could manage in the days allotted.

See what I mean? Extraordinary.