2:59 am

2:59am.  The first day of the rest of my life.  Or so they say.  This is the end of a long, arduous road.  I passed my NBCRNA after 27 months of grueling study and countless hours of demoralizing practice.  Learning.  Facing fears.  Putting people to sleep.  Numbing them to the pain and physical insult of surgery. 

It sucked. 

Twenty-seven months followed by over six weeks of fretting over passing my boards.  And studying. Well, yesterday I did that.  Passed.  That little piece of paper that said that one precious word: PASS.  And so this chapter comes to an end.  I contacted a professor to share the good new and she said “welcome to the rest of your life.” 

So here I am. 

I get my life back.  And the fist thing I feel compelled to do is write.  And with that comes the tears.  And sadness that I didn’t have the wherewithal to do so during my journey.  But I just couldn’t.  It was too close. 

So, now here I am…its 3:05 now and my kitten is perplexed by my wakefulness at this ungodly hour.  But this is how it goes from here. 

New chapter. 

I’m moving home but not.  Spokane.  A new place amid a familiar field.  The Northwest.  But east of the Cascades.  East of what everyone knows as Washington.  Dryer.  But holding its own beauty and potential. 

I recently married a man that I love.  And inherited his child.  And then there is the little muppet of a dog and the aforementioned kitten.  One big, happy family. 

Starting. 

A new chapter.