life update: ot school & moving to greenville.

Well, here we are, at 3:40 p.m. on a Monday, & I am finally sitting down to write about a couple of things that I've been wanting to & meaning to write about since MARCH here in this space. Let's skip the small talk & get to it.

I AM GOING TO OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY SCHOOL THIS FALL.

And in conjunction with the statement above, comes another.

JUSTIN & I ARE MOVING TO GREENVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA, ON JULY 28.

Obviously, because that is where I will be attending school.

I haven't been especially forthcoming here on my blog concerning either of these bits of news, mainly because Justin has been working here in the Wilmington area, & for professional reasons, I needed to keep our plans private until arrangements could be made & notices could be given. However, with this being Justin's last week of work at his current job, I thought this was the perfect time to become fully transparent about our future plans!

Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Back around the end of 2012 & the beginning of 2013, I was really struggling in which direction to take my professional life. I had been job searching in Wilmington for a few months, & the search was turning up dry, to put it nicely. I was in crisis mode. I even considered opening my own business. I considered law school. I wrote this post. Lots of tears were shed, & many dreams felt unattainable. 

Justin was at my side for all of this struggle. He got behind my ideas, even when they changed daily, & he supported me no matter what. Having a stronghold in those rough seas was a God-send. I'll never be able to thank him adequately for putting up with my hemming & hawing & wondering aloud & crying. 

And it was him who just said it one day. We were sitting in one of the hospital corridors during one of his lunch breaks. We were talking about what I should do with my life. You know, just regular small talk. 

"Why don't you just go back to school?" he asked. "Why don't you just do it?"

This wasn't the first time those words had been uttered by him. Nor was it the first time I had thought of it. Nor would this have been the first time I went back to school. I had done the same thing, in 2010, my sights set on Physician Assistant school. Life got in the way that time, I thought to myself. But maybe, this time, things would be different.

Things certainly felt different this time around, when I heard those words. It felt like this was it. 

And it was.

In May, I started taking prerequisites so that I could apply to Occupational Therapy schools around North Carolina. And in June, I wrote this post. And through all the time that I was enrolled at Cape Fear Community College, I shared bits & pieces of my school journey here, especially about my conquering of the beast that was Statistics. From June to December, I talked about tests, midterms, finals, papers, & classes. I even think I mentioned things about applying to schools. But I never said it aloud: I never said, "I am doing everything I can to get into Occupational Therapy school."

But that's what I was doing. Rising early to study for anatomy tests. Staying late to work on Statistics homework in the Math Lab. Spending my free time shadowing at various OT practices around town. 

In December, I submitted applications to three schools. Two in North Carolina, & one in South Carolina. And in the end, by March of this year, I was accepted to two out of those three, one school in North Carolina & one school in South Carolina, which is a fact that brings me extreme pride & joy. I am proud of myself, & I am so very happy that all the hours & hard work that I put in, paid off. Because there were times when I wondered to myself, & other times when I wondered aloud to Justin, "Will all of this be worth it?" [Keep in mind these thoughts usually occurred as I sat in front of Statistics homework with tears streaming down my face. Ha. I can laugh about it now.]

As you may have gathered, I chose the school in North Carolina. And on the twenty-eighth day of this seventh month of two thousand fourteen, we are packing our bags & hitting the road to Greenville, which is a town about two & a half hours northeast of here. We are leaving Wilmington, forever. And as I've mentioned in my last few posts, I am getting pretty wrapped up in nostalgia & sentimentality over the whole thing. I am going to miss this place. We are going to miss this place.

In fact, we may even look into purchasing a place here one day, so we will always have a place to stay, so we will come visit often. We are cherishing our last few weeks in this city. Because although they've been a bit of a struggle at times, they were our struggle. And we have gotten through this together. 

And now, it's time for us to tackle a new adventure together. Justin will be starting a new job in August, & I will be starting Graduate School. And we will work & study & live life to our fullest together in this new journey. And we are excited.

But for now, in the stillness that is the rest of our time here in Wilmington, we are going to soak in every last little joy from this place that we can. We will eat at our favorite restaurants, go to our favorite shops, I will run at my park as much as humanly possible. And when we drive away on July 28, we will do so knowing that a road will always connect us back to this place in our hearts. All we have to do is get in the car, watch the beautiful Carolina country scenery for a couple of hours & some change, & then we'll be back here, ready for more Dixie Grill, or Sawmill, or Hugh MacRae Park.

Here's to the future.