I wish I had one of those cliché stories where I can tell you I’ve known what I’ve wanted to do with my life for as long as I could remember. But the truth is, for the majority of my life, I had no clue. I envied those who did. Those people who applied to a certain school on their college applications knowing full well who they wanted to be when they graduated – you guys all made me sick. I mean, I was super happy for you. But also sick.

The truth is, I took a leap of faith by going to college in New York City, knowing that I wanted to do something glossy and high-profile (most likely for the wrong reasons) and prayed to the high heavens it would work out so I wouldn’t have to hide my face behind a computer at some super boring 9-5 job (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

And then during the second semester of my freshman year at a little artsy school on the Upper East Side, I was asked to do a favor for a friend’s sister and help out at a teeny tiny Public Relations firm for the day. It worked out.

I consider myself a pretty average person. I don’t have any astounding talents other than the amount of donuts I can eat in one sitting or how many sarcastic remarks I can spew out in 90 seconds. But, as it turned out, I was pretty good at this job.

So, I worked in your standard run of the mill sweatshop PR agency for about two years before I landed my dream job. I was hired by the agency that was considered the Tom Brady of PR. If you wanted to work in the communications field, this is where you wanted to work. And after two grueling months of interviews, grammar and spelling tests, and an essay I had to write, they took me on.

I loved this job more than I could possibly tell you. And I don’t mean that in an annoying way. I truly loved it. I didn’t dread waking up in the morning and going to work because I liked what I did there and truth be told, I was good at it. Like, really good at it. And who doesn’t like doing something they’re constantly being praised for? I am a millennial, after all.

But seriously, it was everything I had wanted. Until it just wasn’t. While I once fell into bed after an eighty-hour week planning an event with a half million-dollar budget to be exceptionally rewarding, I didn’t feel that way anymore. I started falling into bed feeling mundane, blasé, and somewhat useless.

And then, a very short time after I started getting the itch to do something else, something happened to somebody very, very important to me. There’s a short and a long story to it. One day I’ll share the long story. But for now, let me say this: the experience I went through with my family shook the foundation of everything I had ever believed in. The incident and its aftermath literally changed everything to the point where I didn’t even know who I was anymore, but I knew this for certain: I wasn’t the same person I was before.

And when that happens – when you go to sleep one night thinking you know who you are and where you belong in this world and then wake up the next morning realizing you were completely and utterly wrong – what do you do?

Well, I don’t know. But I can tell you what I did.

I knew I wanted to do something where I could help people hands-on but it was that combined with my sudden infatuation with medicine (thanks to the severe and debilitating injuries a family member faced- but more on that later) that not only led me to nursing, but left me no other choice.

So, I took another leap of faith. I quit my job. I crawled back into my mom and dad’s house where I literally swore up and down years earlier I would never live again. I enrolled in the pre-requisite courses necessary to apply to nursing school. I turned my life upside down.

None of it has been easy. At times it has actually been horrendous. But you know what? It is literally – without question – the best decision I have ever made in my entire life.

Why?

Because I’m going to be a nurse.