I have spent the last 15 years of my life looking to get to the next stage. Graduate High school, get into college. Move To Utah. Serve a mission, pick a major. Dental school pre-requisites, get your science GPA up, you have to have a DAT score above 20 to be competitive-please let me get it!. Apply, interview, pray you get accepted. Move across the country to Ohio. Keep your dental school grades up in case you want to specialize, you have to have a board score over 90 to be competitive-please let me get it! Keep your grades up. Apply, interview, pray you match in a residency. National Boards part II, Regional Boards. Just huge stressful tests you must pass to move on. Move again.
Now, five months before graduation, staring the finish line in the face, I still have a few hurdles before me. One more huge board exam, find a job, finish a research project, move across the country. Oh yeah, also have another kid. But as these things get closer I start to realize, 'woah, there's no next step." 15 years of moving on, moving up, to get to...here.
Don't get me wrong, it's great to be here, it looks like we're going to have a great life, and reading back through the list I just made it makes me realize how much we've been blessed. But now I just work? No moving? No new exciting places to explore, or new friends to meet? It feels weird, kind of anticlimactic. It was always work, stress, pray, and we made it. The plan was moving forward. It was always "I have to do this to get to there, and this to get to there, please let me get whatever 'this' is so we can get there. Now we're there, and there is no new 'there' to get to. Now we're at the end of the plan. The new plan is work, take a vacation or two every year, watch our kids grow, pay off debts, grow a retirement and college fund and then...?
Anyway, I'm rambling, because it's a hard feeling to describe. Settling down and living this life was always the trophy, and now that it's just about in my hands the road was more fun than I realized, and this trophy is'nt quite as big and shiny as I thought it would be. But I'll still take it.
9 months ago
9 comments:
Well, my tear ducts are still operational. It's true, I feel so excited and yet a little let-down, blessed, but still anxious. All at once. It has been kind of a long road, but the view from the top looking back is pretty cool. So glad to do it all with you. Love you.
You worked hard! Congratulations! Enjoy the destination, although I have a feeling your adventures are just beginning! Let's live it up! Oh, I mean pay off debt...then live it up:)! HA! Miss you guys.
DITTO! I couldn't agree more...
I feel the same way too. You perfectly described it. And as I finished reading, I thought about it and realized maybe I should be reaching a little harder for that celestial trophy!
Now you start watching your children do what you just did...and it's even more stressful and wonderful...and all so worth it!
Hey Rob! Welcome to the best part! You're going to be an awesome pedodontist. Oh yeah- I logged on the tell you about another sweet kid name (a suggestion perhaps): Phurious. No kidding- he was in last week.
Phurious!? Now that is actually pretty sweet, especially if he were a particularly mean linebacker in the NFL someday. Maybe we'll add that to our baby name list.
yep. we get anxious every 2-3 years and feel like moving again. why is it so hard to just enjoy the time we are in? I think we are just programed to progress. can't help it!
How is it that you're always saying the things I want to say, but just don't know how to say them. In fact you think about them before they even happen, you're 5 months early. I've been working for 5 months and am just now realizing these things :) If I had posted it on my blog though it would have been nowhere as clever as yours. Seriously, your next goal...professional writer. Pedodontist was just to get you experience for your true calling in life.
Post a Comment