Career and life choices..

Having already decided I would be a nurse, I left school in 2000 at 16 to gain some 'caring' experience working in Nursing Homes.  I did this for 2 years whilst researching how to get into my nurse training.  First time I applied I was unsuccessful...which was devastating but I had Nanny's words in my head "if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again!"  So I did and got accepted to start my nurse training at Suffolk College.  In September 2002, at age 18, I moved out of my parents' house and into student accommodation to begin my new chapter.

This came as a great relief to me.  I do not wish to make this a negative blog but to get away from my father was an exciting prospect.  As previously mentioned, he was not a nice man and I thought that by moving away, I would be freed of his controlling, obsessive nature....  The other reason for me wanting to qualify as a nurse, was to give me independence and a good steady career, enabling self reliance and a 'safe' future.

I loved my training...it was the most exciting part of my life until then and my first encounter of freedom...I began to feel what real life could be like.  I kept my nose to the grind stone and worked hard...struggling with much of the theory and essays but breezing through the practical elements on the wards.  This was when I discovered my love of surgery as I worked an entire 'summer holiday' on F6 at the West Suffolk Hospital, little did I know at that point how much I would come to love it!  

Then in November 2005 at 21, I qualified as a Staff Nurse.  I was so pleased, as was my Nanny.  "Didn't I always say you would do it?" she said, her support was endless.  I had done it, I had put my mind to it and achieved exactly what I said I would.  After proving that theory once, I knew I could do it again whenever I needed....hard work will achieve wonders!  Now I had security, I had passed my driving test by then too, which was another notch to my independence....or so I thought.  I did know though, no matter how difficult things became at 'home' or wherever I ended up in life, I would always have my nursing career...nurses are needed in every corner of the world and getting that PIN number opened up many ideas for me....which I quietly kept in reserve.

Unfortunately, with finishing my training, also came my Land Lady asking me to move out.  I tried so hard to find my own place in Bury (where I trained) or anywhere surrounding so I didn't have to go back to my parents'.  As it turns out, my fathers controlling nature hadn't improved and he insisted I came 'home' whilst 'looking' for my own place.  I had no choice but to agree although I remember saying to my Mum, "if I move back, I will never leave, you and I both know that!"  She said I was over reacting. So I moved back, saying goodbye to Bury and my freedom.