Age: 26
Location: Philadelphia but soon to be Columbus, Ohio
Current occupation: Graduating from grad school this weekend! Do not yet have employment for next year.
Last school attended: University of Pennsylvania
Biggest and/or most recent Blueprint Change*: Going to grad school for education after completing my undergrad in nursing (2010) – a change influenced by the most major Blueprint Change in my life, which was in 2006 when I got sick.
*A decision you made or something that happened largely or completely out of your control
Past
Could you elaborate on your Blueprint Changes?
I feel like there was sort of a delayed reaction [after I got sick]. I got sick and if I had known what the trajectory of my life was going to look like after being sick, I probably would have changed my career path sooner. But I think I was a little bit in denial. I didn’t really know that it was going to be a chronic condition for life and was sort of hoping that maybe it would get better, so I stuck with nursing even though it was way too physically demanding for me.
I went ahead and got the degree… and then was told pretty much right after I graduated by my neurologist that if I were to continue a career in something so physically taxing, I would be shaving years off my lifespan. So, there was a delay in me actually making the change after the inciting event happened.
I always knew going into this whole process [of education/career planning] that I wanted to help children. That was a non-negotiable goal for me. And I really thought that I was going to do that by being a pediatric nurse. There was pretty much no doubt in my mind that that would be how I would be helping children. And I mean, education was always an interest of mine on the side, but it was just never anything that I thought about as a career. But I guess when I was really forced to confront the fact that my choice of a career was not compatible with my survival and well-being, I was like, “Okay, how else can I still do what I want to do – which is help children – but find a way to do it in a sense that is not going to be so taxing on myself?”
That was a very tough time of my life, because I was coping with the fact that I was being forced to make a life-changing decision because of something that wasn’t under my control. And I felt like I put in so much time and so much effort into getting the degree and going through Penn nursing, which is one of the most intense programs in the country [and] why I was there in the first place. So much of me felt like, “Oh my god, I wasted my time." Which is one of the worst feelings to have about the hard work you've done.
What motivated your decision to go to grad school for education?
What motivated the change for me to pick up and apply to the Graduate School of Education was that I was sort of in this weird phase of trying to figure out what my next steps should be and I actually attended a TED Talk that was given by the then-dean of Penn’s Graduate School of Education. And this sounds so cliché, but you know how people always say that they hear something or see something, and they just have this “ah-ha” moment and they just really connect with it? For me, sitting through that TED Talk was the moment that I really connected with something. Basically, the gist of his talk was that anyone who has been so fortunate to have had an education like a Penn education – and the circumstances of their lives have led them to get opportunities like that – really just owe it to children who don’t have the same opportunities to give back some of what they have gotten. And that really, really resonated with me. So literally, I walked out of the TED Talk and went home and applied to GSE. It was an instantaneous sort of thing.
What guided the push into mental health I guess was that I was looking at the available programs within education and thinking about my experience in nursing – and my own experience being sick – and I realized that being a complete and healthy person – although it’s important to be physically healthy – isn’t possible without being sound of mind. You can be as physically healthy as you want and if you’re struggling emotionally and mentally, your life will still be miserable. And I felt working in healthcare that people focus so much on physical health and not on mental health. I realized that I had an opportunity to work on mental health for kids, and that seemed like a new way to combine all of my interests and the things that I care about without making me feel like I had been robbed of my original plan and that I was being forced to take a back-up option. I knew it was something I would really be invested in and something that I felt passionate about. The change ended up working out.
What was the most challenging part of this change and how did you adapt?
The challenging part of the change was really just accepting that it was happening. Although I did feel very passionate about my new plan, there were definitely times – there still are times – where I’ll be in the hospital [as a patient] and see a nurse or I’ll see my friends who are still nurses and they are very happy and successful in their careers. And there are moments where I am like, “I wonder what it would have been like if I hadn’t gotten sick. What path would my life have taken? Would I have been happier?” I know it’s a very dangerous way of thinking, but I think the biggest challenge is wondering about it sometimes. I feel passionate about what I am doing, I feel good about what I’m doing, but there’s always this sort of nagging worry inside my head, like, “Am I being forced to live my life at the mercy of my illness? Or am I really making decisions for myself?” Sometimes I doubt that and I worry about it and I think that’s probably the toughest part.
As far as coping with it, it’s really just a matter of – whenever I go to the place where I think that way – reminding myself that this wasn’t under my control, so it’s not my fault. And I am already seeing the rewards of what I’m doing now. I interned at an elementary school for the last two years and it was such a wonderful experience. I have already been able to see the ways that I’ve been able to help kids. So there’s sort of a little voice in my head that reminds me that it’s not about me, it’s about them. And that’s what keeps me going every time I doubt myself.
Present
How do you feel about your Blueprint Change now?
I feel great about it. I am so excited. I really feel so fulfilled by the choice that I made. I was interning for the last two years along with being in grad school; it was 24 hours a week and felt like a part-time job. And I realized that every morning that I woke up to go to school – or in my case, work, but it was school – I felt so good about it. I was excited to get up and go. And I loved every minute of the day, even when it was tragic or even when it was difficult.
I can’t say the same thing about any other experience in my life. Even when I really wanted to do nursing, because it was so physically taxing for me. I wasn’t completely excited to do it. I was always worried about how I was going to feel and it was hard for me to be totally, mentally present in what I was doing, because it wasn’t working for me on the most basic level - physically. The best part now is waking up every day loving what I do, knowing that’s exactly what I’m going to keep doing. And I feel like – despite all the things that have gone wrong – I couldn’t be luckier to be in a place where I am really excited about what I am doing!
And in the realm of changes in general - what are some Blueprint Changes you are most proud of?
Honestly, just being able to carry on after being diagnosed with a chronic pain condition. There are times when I look back on the beginning – like, being in a wheelchair and losing the ability to walk and having to learn a lot of basic things all over again. I remember being in the middle of that and I was 18, 19 years old at the time and thinking, “The best years of my life are going to be ruined.” I was really depressed, I had dropped a lot of classes in school, and I fell behind a year. My boyfriend had broken up with me. Everything in my life was just going wrong. I felt like there was no possible way that I was going to recover from it. And I was like, “You know what? I’ll just drop out of school, I’ll go home”. And I mean, I have amazing parents who were totally willing to let me come home and take care of me, but I was just [planning to] go home and wallow and be sick and just have my parents take care of me for the rest of my life. And that was just going to be that.
But looking back now, [I realize that I’ve been able to accomplish a lot]. Even though there are definitely a lot of days that are still really hard. Although I’m excited to wake up in the morning, it’s not easy. Waking up in the morning is the time when I’m physically in the most pain. It’s a really huge challenge to physically get out of bed and start the day. I take lots of medication to stay functional and stay stable, but I do what I have to do for myself and I have been able to accomplish a lot.
I never thought I was going to finish undergrad, let alone finish graduate school. I have such a supportive family. I have been dating an absolutely wonderful guy, who has been there for me. And I just feel like a lot of stuff definitely turned around. Definitely a lot of that stuff that turned around was just blessings or luck that I’m grateful for, but I can also look back on the last 7 years of my life and know how much mental strength and hard work and effort on my part it took to not give up. And I feel really proud about having not given up. To have kept fighting.
If you feel overwhelmed with change(s) now, how do you adapt?
I think that every time an overwhelming change happens in my life now or there’s something that I’m afraid of, I don’t beat myself up for feeling overwhelmed by it. I think that one thing that I’ve learned in my life is that people struggle, and it’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that.
You don’t have to compare what you’re going through to what other people are going through. I mean, you can if it makes you feel better, but you don’t have to do that. You don’t need to justify the way you feel about things. If you’re overwhelmed, feel overwhelmed. Like, when I am afraid of something that’s happening in my life, I’ll sit there, I’ll vent about it, I’ll cry about it, I’ll stay in my apartment and eat ice cream and be alone and take the time that I need to think about whatever is going on. I allow myself the time to have an emotional response, and I think that letting myself be vulnerable in that way is what allows me to then get up and face it.
And for me, I just always remind myself that I have been through a lot of really horrible stuff and I have been in the middle of it and felt like it was never going to get better, it was never going to end. And it always has in some way, shape or form changed or gotten better. So I have complete faith that in some way, shape or form it will not be as bad as it is in that moment. I just need that to motivate myself to sort of jump through whatever it is.
Future
What sorts of Blueprint Changes would like to see happen in the future and why?
Right now, my plan is to be a school counselor working in an elementary school. I think it’s important for me to start there. In some ways, on the bottom rung as far as administration goes, and experience the nitty gritty and worst of it and be there every day, in the trenches. I want that experience, but I really hope that in the future, after having had that experience, I will move on to do something bigger with it. I have considered lots of different things, like the possibility of eventually going into educational policy. Sort of be a driving force behind actually reforming and changing things for education in the country or on a smaller level, like on the state level or even city level. Or change education in another struggling country elsewhere in the world. That would be awesome if I could take my experiences and then use them to help in an even larger way than just with a single school. It’s not a must, but it’s something that I think would be really awesome to be able to do in the future.
And then, of course, there’s the little hope in the back of my head that one Blueprint Change is that I will wake up and not be sick – just as suddenly as I woke up and was sick. There’s always that.
What are you most looking forward to in the time between now and year end?
Finding out where I’m going to be working. For me, the process is a little bit different. I know most people graduate and have a job lined up. When you are applying for jobs in schools though, most of the postings don’t really come up until the end of May or in June, so my job application process is a little bit on hold until those opportunities start to come out. But I’m really excited for that.
I am planning on applying to jobs really all over the country. I just want to work in a high-need district that really needs me. I don’t really have a preference of where that is, so I’m so excited to potentially be moving somewhere brand new and starting a new life for myself and hopefully affecting a community in a very positive way. So that’s what I’m most looking forward to.
Could you share a piece of advice from your experiences (e.g. something that you thought about a lot during changes)?
I think what I realized throughout all of the experiences that I’ve been through is that – generally, people’s inclination when something is going wrong or when they feel overwhelmed, is to lean on whatever resources they have. And if you are fortunate enough to have a lot of friends or family or a significant other or whomever to lean on, I think that that’s really awesome, obviously.
But the thing that I have found though is that people aren’t permanent and even the people that mean the best cannot always take care of everything for you. Even when they are always available as a source of support, there are some things that you just have to do for you. I think what I’ve learned the most is that I am my best friend. I am the person who is best equipped to help me in a rough situation. Even if I don’t always think that I am strong enough or good enough, I am. I have to be. For my own sake. So I think my advice to people is to remember that you are a lot stronger than you think you are. Even in the moments you feel weak, you really need you, so always be there for you.
Thanks you so much for being brave and sharing your story, Meems!
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