Withdraw...

The day I failed nursing school was grey and rainy. The air was bitter cold- the kind of cold that leaves you still shivering an hour later. Everything about the day flew by in slow motion...it was as if I was watching a movie about myself outside of my own body. When the final was handed back and the tiny "73" was etched in pencil in the top corner, my whole body felt numb. Surely, this isn't my final- this was someone elses. Another Rachel's. Another 384376. 

But nope. This unforgiving piece of white paper with its insulting pencil sketches held the answer to what was my future in nursing school. "You didn't make it..I'm sorry.." 

The words just kept pulsing through my ear like a bad echo in a small hallway. 

I went for a walk to remind myself that life was still in constant motion- that I was still suppose to breath, put one foot in front of the next, to not look at my other classmates faces as they overjoyed about their recent success. Two years of hard work was destroyed by 100 questions in under 2 hours. Two years of waking up at 5:45am, writing care plans, looking up hundreds of drugs, cleaning up poop from every body part imaginable. Two years of playing bingo with the old people, changing bandages, giving insulin shots, and watching jeopardy for the hundredth time. Two years of going to the nursing home at 10:30 at night to re-read the chart, write down some facts, and wake up to find I was the one who needed help, not the patient. Two years.

I'm not sure what I'll do now. I guess this is one door closing so another can open. All I know is that I have never felt so completely inadequate about anything else in my life. There is no playbook for failing. Failure is not an option.  I have no "next" plans. I have no control. 

All I know is....

I have to keep going. 

I have to keep living forward. 

Because the best....

is yet to come.