Life of an Anxious Chick

  When people ask, who is/was an influential person in life, I typically respond with my mom.  She will always be one of the strongest women I've ever known.  Sadly I only got 16 years with her as her life was cut way too short.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer during my freshman year of high school and passed away right before my junior year.  But I want my mom's legacy to be more than her illness.  That was just one small part of her life.     She was so many things to so many people.  She was a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend and professionally a cardiac nurse.  I'm sure I got my love for medicine from her.  She was a dedicated, compassionate and brilliant nurse.  She was talking about graduate school before she got sick.  In the last few years of her life, she transferred from patient care to clinical educator.  This meant she taught the new nurses that had just graduated and were starti...

When did the light burn out? When did the sparkle dim? And when did the music stop? It's hard to pinpoint exactly when things go from good to bad in an unhealthy relationship. It's as if at some point it all just gets molded into the bad. Darkness overshadows the light until all you can see anymore is black. You ask yourself, was there ever good? There must have been at some point. But things have been so bad for so long that you just can't remember anymore. All you know is the darkness, the pain and the despair. And perhaps one day, somehow, you're able to find the strength to walk away. Kudos, really. But you quickly discover that darkness just follows you, because that's all you've known for so long.  So that is what you expect. And if by some miracle the light starts to come back in your life you don't embrace it, but instead you question it. You question it's intentions and you certainly can't take it for face value. There must be so...

  Today's world is no doubt full of chaos and uncertainty.  Things are changing every day and sometimes moment to moment.  It's hard to draw the line between being informed and being consumed.  And it's hard not to become sucked into the panic of everything.  But if there's one thing the pandemic has reinforced for me, it's my decision on what to do with my life.   Let me rewind a bit.  Last year when I traveled to Alaska for Amanda's wedding, I did a lot of soul searching (it's easy to do in that kind of scenery.)  At that point, I knew I wanted to go back to school but I was unsure of exactly what for.  I thought about social work or something along those lines.  But in my heart, I knew that was the safe choice.  There was another road I'd thought of for years but never really had the courage to even say it out loud.  That road leads to becoming a physician.  But I always thought it was just too much; too long, too mon...

    Last year I was lucky enough to travel for the second time to a  place a lot of Americans never get to see, the beautiful state of Alaska.  One of my best friends, Amanda, got transferred there through her career with the US Coast Guard.  And she was blessed enough to meet her forever person, Fabian.  Fabian and Amanda had a whirlwind romance and got engaged.  I was even privileged enough to know right before the proposal that he was going to ask.  Not long after, Amanda asked me to be her maid of honor and of course I accepted.   I thankfully got the time off work to go and flew out to Anchorage, AK on a Thursday morning.  The flight to Alaska from my home state of Indiana seems neverending.  I finally arrived after an extremely long day of traveling and met up with Amanda.   The next couple of days we spent hanging out, catching up and preparing for the big day. We actually had the rehearsal dinner on the top of a mount...

And just like that, an entire year has gone by since my last post.  I think I just got busy, overwhelmed and busy some more.  A lot has changed in a year.  I got engaged!  I've been back to Alaska and I stood up next to one of my best friends at her wedding.  I moved into a new house.  We adopted another dog.  I started a new job.  Basically, it's a whole new life. The engagement has been amazing.  In his traditional fashion, my betrothed had to punk me out when he asked for my hand.  It was a draining workday but, Valentine's Day nonetheless.  I was exhausted.  He sat me down and said he had "done something that would affect both of us for the rest of our lives."  My heart started racing.  You see, when someone is serious with me, I tend to assume the worst.  My life hasn't exactly panned out super well up until now.  I thought, "well here we go, he's breaking up with me or something just as bad."  I...