Time to Head Back to the Nest
Trying to have it all together gets exhausting. Or rather making it look like we have it all together gets exhausting. Either way, we are tired. The pressures that social media puts on us to post our perfect lives, our kid’s perfect lives, even our pet’s perfect lives, is outrageous. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned and it’s time to head back to the nest.
When I graduated from college, I decided to enroll in a certificate program specifically designed for people who wanted to pursue a career in the medical field, but needed a GPA boost. In my case, organic chemistry was not my friend. I must have been feeling very confident because I think the program started off with biochemistry or something similar. I was living alone in Richmond, trying my best to study hard and focus on the task at hand…get good grades, go to medical school. The first test was in early September, and will be etched in my brain forever. I looked around the classroom and saw everyone else working through problems and filling in answers. I was freaking out. This test may as well have been in another language. I was in over my head and I wanted out. Did I have a plan? No. All I knew was that this program wasn’t going to work for me and I needed to regroup.
At one point or another I am sure all of my kids will need to come back home, to the nest, even if it’s just for a short time, to reexamine their decisions and try to figure things out. But heading back to the nest doesn’t mean we actually need to move back home. It’s a little late for a lot of us to do that! Your nest can be the place where you feel most comfortable, even if it’s not a physical place; perhaps it’s a state of mind. Maybe your nest is at your best friend’s house, on the phone with your life coach, or in bed with a cup of tea. How many times have you had everything in order one day, and the next day it all comes crashing down? All of those plans we make could work out; or more likely the roadblocks, twists and turns, and failures will shape who we are. When things get tough for me, I tell myself go to back to the basics. I try to make things easier for a while and then rebuild. I’m a long way from that 21 year old attempting to go to medical school and while it’s still painful to think about what might have been, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I never would have had that fateful blind date with my husband that led us to the life we have now, with three perfectly imperfect kids.
The lyrics from one of my favorite country music songs sums up how I feel this week…
May we all do a little bit better than the first time
Learn a little somethin' from the worst times
Get a little stronger from the hurt times
May we all get to have a chance to ride the fast one
Walk away wiser when we crashed one
Keep hopin' that the best one is the last one
Yeah, you learn to fly, and if you can't, then you just freefall
-Florida Georgia Line, May We All
