How did I get here?

I’m still trying to figure that out myself.  I mean, I certainly didn’t have any kind of fairytale vision of my life when I was younger, but I never thought I’d get married…. And have three kids… THREE.  I love them dearly but if you have multiple young children, you also understand how much they suck the life out of you, as much as they smother you with their love and energy.  

My kids are 9, 7, and 1.5.  Nine and seven were very much planned.  And when I say planned, I mean we didn’t plan on having kids when my husband and I got married but about five years in I think my biological instincts finally woke up and I felt like I NEEDED kids.  Hence seven and nine.  

Now one and a half was very much a math error on my part with my birth control and is our bonus baby.  But we love her to pieces and given that she was born in 2020, she turned out to be the silver lining we needed during the pandemic.

In 2016 I decided to return to school to become a nurse.  I started working as a CNA at our local hospital the same year in critical care.  When I graduated nursing school a couple years later, well…. Check out the previous post for part II to that.

I’ve talked to friends and coworkers about the “how did I get here” feeling.  One day I was living a carefree life as a teenager and BOOM- I’m nearing 40 and becoming increasingly uneasy about getting older.  My kids don’t know why I say “roll down” the car window or even what commercials were until we stayed in a hotel a couple years back that had cable rather than the streaming services they’re used to.  

Every passing year goes by faster and faster, so as gigantic of a mountain as medical school seems like right now, I know I’ll be on the other side very shortly, asking myself again, how did I get here?  Where did those four years go?