I am about to embark on my journey of returning to school. I have been prepared for the fact that I would return to school to complete my Masters, but I wasn't prepared fully for it to be in the particular field I will begin my studies in, in just a few weeks.
You see, for the last 10 years, since I graduated high school {mind blown - time flies!} I've been preparing for, immersed myself in and urned passionately to become a Physical Therapist. That has been the career I have dreamed of. Now, I guess fate - or life - had another plan for me. It seemed no matter how many times I had applied, how many course I had redone, or how many years I had waited for this program to become a Masters rather than a Bachelors degree the stars never seem to align. So this past year after 5 applications, 3 interviews, 5 years of school, 3 or 4 retaken classes to improve grades and being waitlisted once - I gave up. Well maybe not gave up, but I surcame to fate. In addition to applying for Physical Therapy, I also applied to another department in the Medical Rehabilitation Faculty: Occupational Therapy. Luck would have it, I applied, had an interview and got accepted!
Now, over the last couple months since accepting the offer, I have to admit that I have not been elated - to say the least. I have hummed and hawed, over and over again. I have cried, I have been angry and I have wonder how I could just give up on a ten-year dream and move on. Moving on is hard, especially from a dream that I have told every soul I have met and talk about all the time. How am I going to face people? What are people going to think? These questions have continually crossed my mind.
Then after talking with friends - and of course my mother - I realized, that many peoples lives changes paths. No one is going to hold it against me that even though my Dream/Future Plans in the high school yearbook states Physical Therapy and I am not on that path. Newsflash - half the peoples lives are nowhere near what they had planned. My problem was that I had planned my life so fully around one idea/concept/dream that I never gave anything else a chance. Plus, for those of you who know the fields, Physical Therapy (PT) and Occupational Therapy (OT) are similar and also have differences - and maybe the differences and ideas that set OT apart from PT are where I will excel.
That is why I am hoping that this choice is the perfect fit. You see my main focus on PT was because I love learning about the body, and in particular how it works {hence my degree in Human Movement} but I also wanted to help individuals restore movement to continue with tasks. Now in PT I would be doing this by using exercise, soft-tissue techniques and other health care related modalities to help recover from injury. Now with OT, I will be trying to restore movement to complete tasks, but be going about it using different methods, some similar with exercise, tissue work - but the part that I think has helped me realize that this may be the perfect fit, is that I will get to use some creativity - bring in some arts and crafts ideas and brainstorm different ways to approach the tasks at had. In the end, physical therapy would have left me doing just that a lot of physical work that may be hard on my body in years to come, but with occupational therapy I can use all of my body: physically, mentally and creatively.
So I'm putting on my creative hat, using my love and passion for the human body and keeping my will to help others regain their lives - and letting fate take its course as I begin my journey this August - hoping I have found the niche to excel my career!
So tell me: Have you stayed on course and never gave up? Have you flip-flopped careers, life paths? Do you believe fate has a way of getting you on track? I would love to hear your experiences and ideas!
Happy Friday.
