Nearing the Finish Line

Graduation Announcement

It's been a busy past month, but it's coming down to a close. Somehow though since my last update on March 29th, I've still been able to do four races and the Navy PRT. None of the races were spectacular efforts. They consisted of two 5K road races, one weird distance trail run, the Davy Crockett Bear Chase Half Marathon, and the 1.5 mile PRT. The half was my fourth half this year. I was shooting for one half a month for the whole year, but given some pain in the top of my right foot, I think I'm going to have to put that off till next year. That, and I don't have a half lined up for May or beyond.

A lot of things have happened since my seven year anniversary date in the Navy. I have since finished my last clinical, attended my last lecture, and gave my last presentation of my nursing school career. It doesn't seem like very long ago that I was sitting on a bench outside of the library waiting till the last minute to walk inside to start my first day of nursing school. Now, we only have seven days left before we're done with our BSN.

Commission

My commissioning ceremony is the night before graduation. I'm doing a joint commissioning ceremony with the Army ROTC class. They we're kind enough to let me jump in with them for commissioning. I've never been to a commissioning ceremony before other than the quick ones that are redone during the nursing pinning ceremony. It's funny to me that the first commissioning that I attend will be my own. I dropped my dress whites off at the cleaners today. I think the plan is to do the commissioning and pinning ceremonies in the whites and graduation day in the khakis. I've already taken a ton of uniform pictures thanks to a wonderful friend who enlisted her mom to take the pictures, but I won't put them on here or Facebook until the day of commissioning. Don't want to be impersonating an officer or anything...

This past Friday, I finally received orders to Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, VA. This was our second choice on our list of places we wanted to go. We're pretty excited about leaving Nac and moving back to the East coast. It's gorgeous there, and VA is a really nice place to be. We wanted to be in or near a bigger city. -Villes, -burgs, and -doches are just a little too small for our liking. Portsmouth is 27 minutes from VA Beach. Dave Matthews plays a show in VA Beach every year, so it will be nice to not have to drive for hours to see them. The other really good thing about being over there is the running. While I love the small town racing scene down here, races are pretty scarce in East Texas. I'm going to miss my LAPS family though. I'll just represent them well on the East coast. My last Nacogdoches race is tomorrow at the Fredonia 5 Miler.

Yoga

What I haven't come to terms with yet is yoga. I'm really struggling with this one. I ran long before I moved to Texas. It was easy to transition to that here since I did it for so long before moving here. It will be easier than other things to leave it and continue it elsewhere. But I found yoga here. I don't think I'll ever find a practice, a teacher, or a group of friends like the ones I have at this studio. I haven't accepted this part of leaving, and I don't really have a plan for dealing with it yet...

Research Presentation Day

I'm also not sure how to deal with leaving some of the friendships that I've made. Much like the friendships made on deployment, there is a bond formed between people in nursing school that is unlike other majors. It's not just tests and papers...it's caring for patient. It takes a lot of us, and it's something that we all work through together in different ways. I'm pretty used to having to leave friends after a relatively short period of time, but this time will be really tough.

It's not all sad though. We are ready to get out of here. We're ready to live in a big city. The East coast is beautiful, and there's lots to do there. We'll meet new people and get to see cool things. And most importantly, we'll continue to love and never forget the friends we've made here.