When I was in Nepal…

…I was blessed by a lama. 

It was a lovely little ceremony in an ornate temple before I embarked upon my journey to Annapurna Base Camp in the Himalayas.  It was meant to be a good luck charm.  A simple blessing for a safe journey. 

It was a thin piece of yellow string that the lama tied around my neck and then he said a little prayer. 

I loved it.  I still do. 

That was in November of 2013.  Now it is January 2017 and I just took it off.

For the fist time. 

I’m not entirely sure why.  It was a blessing after all, why would I remove that? 

But it felt like time. 

While I was there, in Nepal, hiking in the Himalayas, I have this one very specific memory.  I was trudging up this steep, stone stairway (there were lots of those).  I had just applied for grad school when I left and was contemplating (and admittedly stressing about) what I was going to do if I didn’t get in.  Then this thought occurred to me. 

What if I do, actually get in?

That was almost more terrifying. 

And, well, I got in.  I went to anesthesia school.  And as I have said before…

…it sucked. 

They say it’s the hardest thing you will ever do in your life.  I think they are right.  Of course there are worse things that can happen to you, I’ve witnessed a few in fact.  And also, of course no one exactly held a gun to my head and made me do it.  So don’t feel sorry for me. 

But still…

It was 27 months of my life.  And now it is over.  What seems to have started with that realization in Nepal, when the possibility first seemed real and frightening, that was the beginning. 

And now that journey is complete. 

So maybe that’s why I removed that little memory.  I put it in a new memory.  A small jar, a

“dresser jar” that belonged to my husband’s great grandmother.  My husband gave it to me on my birthday, and inside was his late mothers wedding ring…he gave it to me as he proposed.  So that little jar is sort of a symbol of the next chapter.  So I put the last chapter inside of it. 

Does that make sense?