and... I passed Nursing school yesterday.

Yes, I am writing to you as a new graduate nurse.

I still can't believe it, the shock is still here. 

I spent the last TWO years slaving away learning every nursing intervention under the sun. I spent a lot of that time in stress, fear and tears. Life of any nursing student. Constantly worrying about failure. Constantly thinking is this the right thing to do? And a million "what ifs". The list goes on. and on.

You might be wondering, "why in the hell did you continue to do this?!"

Answer: I couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life. NOTHING ELSE. When I started nursing school I knew this was what I was born to do. I know, I know, it really sounds cheesy. Well it's the absolute truth. I can't tell you what a feeling I get knowing that my patient is getting better because of my care.

The measure of a life is it's service. I truly live by this. It's fitting because this is the motto of my university from my first degree, Sam Houston State University.

I don't really open up about my family because I don't have a good relationship with a good bit of them. Something you probably don't know about me, is that I grew up very poor and misguided. My mom didn't really accomplish very much in her life and my dad wasn't in the picture half the time, due to mental illness and very poor life choices.

More than a few of the people in my family thought I was destined to lead a life that my parents did.

So often times growing up I was told the following:

I would never go to college because I didn't have the money to go. 

I should most likely follow some kind of trade that didn't require very much school. 

I wasn't smart enough.  

Long story short, I had to figure out a good bit of life on my own. I refuse to fall into the "oh woe is me".  I used all of these words as fuel. Fuel to the fire of finding myself.

I wanted to change my life and where it was going. I needed something that was my own. That's where education came in. After high school, I figured out that I was actually pretty smart and can do this college thing pretty well. My new goal was to become the first woman in my family to graduate college.

I graduated with my bachelors degree in 2012 and now two years later in 2014, yet another degree in one of the most respected professions, Nursing.

I did it. I was the very first woman in my family to graduate college.

In the times that I wanted to quit and give up, my grandmother's words resonated in my head, "you aren't smart enough". That made me try harder. Work harder. Do Better.  Do I let those words of doubt hurt me?

No. 

Those words pushed me to better myself, and enabled me to truly see what i'm made of. I'm done trying to prove them wrong, because I did so long ago.

I did this for me and no one else.

I don't usually open up about things like this, because this is a very deep part of me. A deep place that I am just now starting to understand and become comfortable sharing. To not share this, most people wouldn't understand how important school and education is to me, and why I try so hard.

Moral of the story: You can literally do anything you set my mind to, no matter what it is.