As the year is coming to an end, I can't help but reminisce on what 2016 now means to me. For the good and the bad, the old and the new, it is hard to wrap my head around how much the last 365 days has impacted me. As one year is a long time to summarize, these 3 quotes I found highlighted the last 12 months best..

“I am on the hunt for who I have not yet become” – Sarah Barellies

From the time in Kindergarten in which they asked me what I wanted to become when I grew up, until the middle of my Freshman Spring Semester of Nursing School at Temple University, my dream always entailed becoming a Pediatric Nurse. If someone would have come to me a year ago saying that I would choose to not become a nurse in the course of the next 365 days, I would have laughed in their face. But all because I listened to the small little voice in my head, for future reality is forever changed... for the better of course! As I continued to sit in on my nursing and science classes as well as my clinical this past spring, I knew something was not right. I began to give up on my classes, my vision of becoming a lifetime nurse was not sounding ideal and the more I thought about other career options that I was always interested in, they began to make me feel happier then nursing ever did. For a while, I admit to being in denial. How could I possibly not want to be a nurse after dreaming about becoming one my whole life? How could I go back home to friends and family who have only ever known me as ‘a future nurse’? For weeks, I continued on with nursing school more so for the fact that I didn’t want the ones around me to feel ‘let down’, disappointed, or felt like I was giving up. It took me a while to realize it, but I soon figured out that I had to do what was right for myself and not so much for the ones around me. In mid-April, I went to my nursing advisor asking to withdrawal from nursing and that I had no interest in him talking me out of it. Within minutes, I was enrolled as a Public Health major. Happier than ever, I am slowing beginning to dissect so much about myself that I never got the opportunity to figure out in nursing school. Just over the last 16-week semester in Public Health, I have created incredible connections with professors and tutors that I could not even begin to thank for all that they have done for me as a student and individual, the opportunities I have been offered for course of the next 2 and half years as a PH student, and the guidance I have received to help create the new reality I am beyond ready to take on. Now, here I stand majoring in Public Health and minoring in Healthcare Management. With the idea of becoming an Epidemiologist with my degree, my mind is still open to what the future has in store!

“Train your mind to always see the good in everything”

This year has come to show me that life truly is filled with many ups and downs and that nobody out there is able to prepare you for them. Besides the changing of my major, the hardest thing I have had to deal with not only over the course of this year but ever is being told that my father was diagnosed with MDS and Leukemia. Over the course of these 12 months, good news and bad news has been thrown around all over the place. Naturally, the bad news is much harder to hear and accept compared to the good news. At the beginning, receiving any type of bad news was always a hard pill to swallow. No matter how much the ones around me told me that ‘everything was going to be okay’ or that ‘this is only for the better’, it was very hard to sit back and believe them. But in reality, they were right. Yeah, my family and I have been through hell and back. But what is also true is that things could be much worse, you know? It wasn’t until I realized that that I began to react much more positive toward any news given to me. As it did take almost all year for my brain to think in such a way, my perspective has changed incredibly. My appreciation for so many things, especially toward relationships with my friends and family, has grown. I have come to cherish all moments life throws at me because you never know when the moment could be gone forever.

“Find your tribe. Love them hard”

My family and friends are who I cherish the absolute most. They have always been the core to my life and there is nothing that could change that. I am thankful for the new relationships formed this year, the ones that have dissolved and most importantly the ones that have continued to grow. I can’t imagine life without the ones that I am surrounded by now. To my parents, no words could summarize my love and gratitude toward you both. You have always been there to put a smile on my face, a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen. You guys are my world. To my siblings, you guys are the absolute best. I can always count on you guys for anything and everything and I can’t thank you enough for that. To my best of friends, I can’t imagine life without you guys. Through the thick and the thin, you guys have continued to be my left hand through it all. You guys are absolutley amazing!

To the year of 2016, thank you. You have formed a past that will stick with me forever, a present that I am beyond grateful for and a future that I continue to look forward to experiencing. Here is to a fresh new start. Here is to the year of 2017!