A New Chapter

It’s been exactly 29 days since I finished taking the board exam. 29 days of bumming around. Sure, I found the first week enjoyable, spending time with my friends, shopping, watching movies, reading, and writing: things I have not indulged myself too much on for the past 2 months preparing for the exams.

Then the second week came and I got bored out of my mind at home.

Sure, it was tolerable but well, really, you can only do so much: watching TV, house chores, eating, playing diablo3 in the wee hours of the night. Sure I was perfectly content with being curled up in bed all day, reading. But my hand was itching to write.

And the home environment wasn’t very productive for me at all. I found myself staring at a blank page for hours at a time. It was terribly, terribly frustrating.

That’s when a friend of mine asked if I wanted to get a job. Well… in all actuality, my mom didn’t want me to work yet and I thought, before the board results came out, I would bum around and just read and write at home, maybe even volunteer at the local health centre. But like I said, I wasn’t very productive.

So I agreed.

I sent my resume to a company my friend recommended. I got scheduled for an interview the next day. I asked my cousin to come with me, considering she, too, was looking for a job. I opted to keep in mind that if I get hired, it would be temporary: until my board exam results come out and I get my license. 

Although I wasn’t taking job hunting seriously yet, it got me thinking of my not so distant future as I sat waiting to be interviewed  for the fourth time by the fourth company. It made me realize that looking for a job isn't easy, especially if you’re inexperienced.

It got me thinking about the board exam: What if I didn’t pass? I’d have to take it all over again. Too much time will go to waste. But then again, if I did pass, would I get a job? There’s a reason there’s an increasing decrease in nursing students for the past few years. There are too many nurses in the country with nowhere 

to work.

I started thinking, what if I didn’t take practicality into consideration when choosing my course and studied mass communications or English lit instead? Where would I be right now?

But then, I thought, I’m already here: a nursing graduate. There’s no use for regrets. Besides, I want to practice my profession. I want to be a psychiatric nurse. I want to be a forensic nurse. I want to work as a writer in a magazine. I want to write and publish a novel someday. I want to own a café, a restaurant, a bar, an establishment. There are a lot more things I want to make of myself.

But how do I get from point A to point B? To point C? To point D? To point E?

So now, I’m rambling.

But my point is this: I’m scared.

There are too many questions I don’t know the answer to. There are too many changes, too many fears. But 

I’m never gonna know until I get there, will I?

So I’ll be gritting my teeth and go where the wind takes me.

I’ll keep dreaming. I’ll work my way through it. I’ll get to where I want to be, where I should be.

I know I will.

But until then and right now,

It’s still a new chapter of my life: Uncharted Territory.

Damn right, that’s what it is.