Defying Gravity!!!

I recently went to see the musical Wicked.

I have to say I absolutely loved, loved, LOVED it!!! There are a couple of songs in it that have brought me to tears at times and also made me think back in my life of different times.

This particular song, "Defying Gravity" makes me think about my time in nursing school. See, many of you who read this really don't know me. Not the real me! So let me tell you a little.



I was an "OK" student in high school. Really? I did just enough to graduate, nothing more! I had a high school counselor who actually told me after I took the SAT's that I wouldn't even be able to get into a community college because my scores were so low and my grades were not good enough in school. So I might as well decide now to try something else. That was a real downer!! Actually, I don't ever remember in all my high school years ANY school counselor, acedemic advisor, teacher, or any other adult leader, telling me what classes to take or advising me on things to do to actually make it to college. No one telling me that I should take the harder courses not just the easy ones.



I decided to try college anyway. My grandmother was an elemetary school teacher and the job I had as a high school student was working in a day care. So, how hard could it be to become a teacher. I liked kids. So I thought I would try that. Maybe kindergarten, since the older kids really just mostly made me angry with their attitudes. Well, short version, I did get into the local college. I again didn't have much help putting my class schedule together and ended up with a crazy schedule of pretty in depth classes the first semester. Needless to say, I didn't do so good. I hated it actually. So I guess I proved that high school counselor right when I decided to quit school after a semester and a half!!!



Back to working at day cares and minimum wage jobs for me!! That was not going to land me anywhere fast. I then ended up in a nursing home working as a CNA for a long long long time. I watched as the nurses would get burned out. I watched as I would get angry at lazy nurses. I watched as the older CNA's would struggle with their job because of their age, yet this is what they had done all their lives and couldn't/wouldn't do anything else. I knew that I didn't want to be a CNA forever! I couldn't live on that kind of money. This is where I also decided that maybe being a nurse was for me. I wanted to be better than those nurses who were just there for the paycheck. I wanted to be a nurse who really cared.



I fianlly decided to go to nursing school. (that decision in itself is a whole other post!) I was 29 years old when I walked into class for the first time. There were many people who thought I was crazy. Many people who thought I didn't have what it took. And some who thought I wouldn't make it at all. There were also moments when I myself thought I was drowning and wouldn't make it through. Being in classes with those young, right out of high school kids who had planned for years to be a nurse and took all the biology and anatomy they could in high school was pretty intimidating! I had alot going against me at different times during my college years. I cared for a grandmother who had Alzheimer's. I also helped care for a mother-in-law, who had Alzheimer's, and I had a family! It was by far the hardest thing I have ever done. AND looking back, I truly feel that I did EXACTLY what I was supposed to do. I am EXACTLY where I am supposed to be in my life. I have no doubt about that at all!!!

I really did DEFY GRAVITY!!!


Below are the lyrics to that song from the musical Wicked. Every time I hear it, I think of how I overcame the odds and made something of myself!

(I did leave off some of the lyrics at the end, but this is the jist of it)

DEFYING GRAVITY

Something has changed within me

Something is not the same

I'm through with playing by the rules

Of someone else's game

Too late for second-guessing

Too late to go back to sleep

It's time to trust my instincts

Close my eyes: and leap!

It's time to try

Defying gravity

I think I'll try

Defying gravity

And you can't pull me down!

I'm through accepting limits

'Cuz someone says they're so

Some things I cannot change

But till I try, I'll never know!

Too long I've been afraid of

Losing love I guess I've lost

Well, if that's love

It comes at much too high a cost!

I'd sooner buy

Defying gravity

Kiss me goodbye

I'm defying gravity

And you can't pull me down