This week I will turn 36. I now understand what people mean when they say, "where does the time go?"
Life is speeding up.
I am 14 months into a 34-month PA program. Some days, I feel like we started a month ago. Then, days like today happen, and I am shown how much I've actually learned.
We had a club meeting at lunch, and one of my favorite professors talked about her various jobs since graduating PA school. Toward the end, she presented 4 interesting cases. While she ran down the patient's chief complaint, medical history, medication history, and physical exam, I was struck that I understood everything she was saying. September-2018-Christen would have been so lost. "CMP, CBC, CT... What?" I followed her thought process and smiled inside. "Maybe I can do this."
PA school is like nothing else I've experienced in life...and I've experienced a lot of life. School was always fairly easy for me. I made my one and only B from K-12 in high school chemistry. I made 3 Bs in undergrad and managed straight-As in PA school prerequisites. I came into school expecting a challenge. I was not prepared for a full-life onslaught.
I am pushed to the breaking point at least once a month, if not weekly. I have cried in multiple faculty members' offices. I have made my first C, while fearing actual failure. I have composed imaginary apology emails to professors mid-exam because I "knew" I was failing.
PA school is 7-8 hours a day in a classroom, with 3-4 hours of studying in the evenings, and 10-12 hours of studying each Saturday and Sunday, only to make a 76 on a midterm. It's 4 quizzes a week and a test on your birthday while being required to complete side assignments and geriatric home visits.
It's beyond hard.
Daily, I question my own ability and intelligence and why on earth they ever let me in. I find myself doubting God—his ability to hold me, lead me, and see me through this season. How can this possibly work out?
.
But PA school is also incredible. It's worth it. I am learning things I've craved to know my whole life. Soon, I will be able to deliver babies, sew up cuts, read X-rays/MRIs/CTs, write prescriptions, and hopefully save some lives.
I have made "in the trenches" friends. Have you ever sat at a coffee shop and studied, cried, laughed, and hugged all the baristas in the span of an hour? I have. Have you been in a group text that makes you laugh so hard you leak actual tears? This happens to me almost daily. Do you take turns talking your friends off cliffs so they can talk you off one the next day? Yep. I do. I have a legit tribe.
Last night, over sushi, I had the opportunity to remember a moment of God's faithfulness. Four years ago this week, the week of my birthday 2015, I finally said out loud to my parents that I wanted to go to PA school. I knew what this dream would mean, the sacrifice it would require. About two weeks after that conversation, I got in touch with a realtor to look into selling my (dream) house. I was still on the fence about committing to this path, but I figured I would start the conversation.
The morning after the realtor walked through my house, he called to ask if he could show it to someone, even though he knew I was undecided.
Twenty-four hours later, I had a contract on my house. At my asking price.
"Okay, God. Okay."
And from that point, I haven't looked back.
I sold my house. I quit my job. I moved in with my parents while I worked on prerequisites. I survived prereqs and got into a PA school on the first try.
"Okay, God."
Yet somehow, I still doubt. How human of me.
I find myself turning to worship music quite often when I study. It brings me back to truth when all I feel is darkness. This is the song I have on repeat often (literally at this moment):
"When I fear my faith will fail
Christ will hold me fast
When the tempter would prevail
He will hold me fast
I could never keep my hold
Through life’s fearful path
For my love is often cold
He must hold me fast
He will hold me fast
He will hold me fast
For my Savior loves me so
He will hold me fast." -Sovereign Grace Music
It's true. He will hold me fast—through success or failure, whatever may come—my Savior loves me so and will hold me fast.
Much love,
Christen
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Very good.
We’re getting close to a year without my precious Nannie. It seems nearly impossible. To know Nannie was to know love. And I knew her love for 34 1/2 wonderful years.
Now that I’m in PA school, I sit at my desk and study. A lot. I also sit there and daydream and waste time and generally do anything but study. I recently hung this picture near my desk. It means I get to look at it quite a bit. I think I was 24 in that picture. If it’s from the Christmas I’m thinking of, I missed Christmas that year because of my job. I was a flight attendant with a crazy schedule who just wanted to be at home with her family. I worked a two-day trip on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to Tampa. The pilots took us all out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner on Christmas Eve. Even though we were stuffed with dinner, they insisted we get cheesecake to go, and they paid for the whole crew. It was a bright spot in a miserable trip. I woke up Christmas morning, ate cheesecake for breakfast in my hotel bed, and cried. I couldn’t believe I was spending Christmas alone.
Christmas. Nannie’s favorite holiday. Wait, that’s not right. Her favorite day. Ever. She lived to make Christmas magical. She had 13 grandchildren, yet each of us felt like her favorite. She knew how much I loved her Christmas decorations, so she made sure to have the tree up before Thanksgiving Day. Every year she would say, “I went ahead and got the tree up because I know Christen likes it up before Thanksgiving.” She said it like this was the first year she decided to do it. But it was every year. The recognition and feeling so known in such a seemingly odd way sticks with me.
It wasn’t just the presents either. It was being 5 years old and sleeping 4 deep on hideabeds with my cousins while bells and hoofs rattled the roof. It was the whispers about Santa. The joy of waking up Nannie and Granddaddy before sunrise because we just knew Santa had come. It was being made to wait in the hallway for what felt like hours while the parents huddled in the living room to catch us on video in all of our bedhead glory. It was sitting on the back porch and swinging with her as she asked if we got everything we asked for. It was the big lunch or dinner and then cramming 20+ people in the living room to open presents. Sure, the presents were great, but the joy of watching Nannie beam over each grandchild’s happy face was so much better. She wasn’t effusive. When you said “thank you,” she would just sweetly dip her head as if to say “you’re welcome.” Magic. The day was magic.
That Christmas of the cheesecake and tears in Tampa, I knew I only had the 26th off. I got back to Houston really late on the 25th and drove 4 1/2 hours to my grandparents’. And you know what? Christmas at Nannie and Granddaddy’s House was magically on the 26th that year. They waited for me. She insisted they wait on me.
My sweet, precious Nannie’s mind was stolen away by dementia. One of the last things I had a chance to tell her when she was still making memories was that I was going back to school. I told her about quitting my landman job and going to UT Tyler to finish some prerequisites. She and my Granddaddy were so supportive. Over the next couple of years, unfortunately she didn’t remember what I was doing. Despite the illness taking her memories, she retained so much of who she was. When I would visit, I always told her about school, and I got to share the exciting news that I was accepted to PA school. Even when I knew she didn’t remember what I was up to, she would dip her sweet little head and say, “very good.”
It’s the words that I hear in my head.
She was quiet and steady and a women fully devoted to God and her family. I hope to be her one day, and I think I know what she would say.
“Very good.”
Now that I’m in PA school, I sit at my desk and study. A lot. I also sit there and daydream and waste time and generally do anything but study. I recently hung this picture near my desk. It means I get to look at it quite a bit. I think I was 24 in that picture. If it’s from the Christmas I’m thinking of, I missed Christmas that year because of my job. I was a flight attendant with a crazy schedule who just wanted to be at home with her family. I worked a two-day trip on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to Tampa. The pilots took us all out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner on Christmas Eve. Even though we were stuffed with dinner, they insisted we get cheesecake to go, and they paid for the whole crew. It was a bright spot in a miserable trip. I woke up Christmas morning, ate cheesecake for breakfast in my hotel bed, and cried. I couldn’t believe I was spending Christmas alone.
Christmas. Nannie’s favorite holiday. Wait, that’s not right. Her favorite day. Ever. She lived to make Christmas magical. She had 13 grandchildren, yet each of us felt like her favorite. She knew how much I loved her Christmas decorations, so she made sure to have the tree up before Thanksgiving Day. Every year she would say, “I went ahead and got the tree up because I know Christen likes it up before Thanksgiving.” She said it like this was the first year she decided to do it. But it was every year. The recognition and feeling so known in such a seemingly odd way sticks with me.
It wasn’t just the presents either. It was being 5 years old and sleeping 4 deep on hideabeds with my cousins while bells and hoofs rattled the roof. It was the whispers about Santa. The joy of waking up Nannie and Granddaddy before sunrise because we just knew Santa had come. It was being made to wait in the hallway for what felt like hours while the parents huddled in the living room to catch us on video in all of our bedhead glory. It was sitting on the back porch and swinging with her as she asked if we got everything we asked for. It was the big lunch or dinner and then cramming 20+ people in the living room to open presents. Sure, the presents were great, but the joy of watching Nannie beam over each grandchild’s happy face was so much better. She wasn’t effusive. When you said “thank you,” she would just sweetly dip her head as if to say “you’re welcome.” Magic. The day was magic.
That Christmas of the cheesecake and tears in Tampa, I knew I only had the 26th off. I got back to Houston really late on the 25th and drove 4 1/2 hours to my grandparents’. And you know what? Christmas at Nannie and Granddaddy’s House was magically on the 26th that year. They waited for me. She insisted they wait on me.
My sweet, precious Nannie’s mind was stolen away by dementia. One of the last things I had a chance to tell her when she was still making memories was that I was going back to school. I told her about quitting my landman job and going to UT Tyler to finish some prerequisites. She and my Granddaddy were so supportive. Over the next couple of years, unfortunately she didn’t remember what I was doing. Despite the illness taking her memories, she retained so much of who she was. When I would visit, I always told her about school, and I got to share the exciting news that I was accepted to PA school. Even when I knew she didn’t remember what I was up to, she would dip her sweet little head and say, “very good.”
It’s the words that I hear in my head.
She was quiet and steady and a women fully devoted to God and her family. I hope to be her one day, and I think I know what she would say.
“Very good.”
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