What!? Life's NOT cut and dried?!?!

I know what you're wondering.  "I can't possibly mean what title implies.  Life is, of course, easy and carefree and predictable.  I totally have it figured out."

Not.

And thank heaven.

Before I continue, I should acknowledge that it's been forever since I've posted.  My brother Kevin had a really rough patch but he is out of the ICU after almost 2 months.  My amazing boss allowed me to stay in Utah for a bit longer after Christmas Break and go back AGAIN the last week of January when things were looking really bleak.  I can't express enough gratitude for the support family and friends have shown towards my family and me.  And I'm overjoyed that Kevin is recovering from this terrible sepsis.

As far as I go, something incredible has happened...specifically, a series of events has led me to consider an option that I hadn't given much thought to in the past.

Event 1
This took place when I was in Utah, coming home from the hospital with my mom.  You've got to understand that my mom and I are very good friends.  You've also got to understand that while Kevin was in the ICU, the nurses and doctors that cared for him were some of the finest.

With that, as we were going home, Mom asked: "Have you ever thought about being a nurse or a doctor?"

It didn't seem like a strange question at all.  My answer was not, "well Mom, I've sort of gotten a degree already so...ya know...yeah."  In my answer, I said that it was amazing work that nurses and doctors perform...I just wasn't sure if I'd have the stamina to do that type of work all the time.

But I never forgot that she asked it. This context leads us into:

Event 2
A week or so later, I attended a singles ward (an LDS congregation for young single adults.  Yep, I'm 25 years young) in Ogden.  I ran into a good friend of mine, Nicole Carter, who I hadn't seen in over 5 years.  She lived a good distance away and happened to be attending this ward because her brother was giving a talk.

She made a comment in Sunday school.  When she first started college, she was sure she was going to study music...and soon felt that her service was needed in another department.  She graduated from Weber State University and is now a registered nurse.  We chatted a bit and I went home.

Event 3
As Kevin was initially getting better, I decided that I would fly back to DC.  Back in November, I had booked a flight to Orlando for the weekend of MLK Day to visit Jake & Bethany Deines, Hannah Hopkin & Brock Hostetter...good grief, spell checker does not accept ANY of their last names!  Anyhow, I made it back to DC just in time to go to sleep, work for 6 hours and catch the flight.  I also got in touch with Daniel Martoma (spell checker doesn't care for that last name either) who was in my program at BYU.

While catching up with Daniel, I found out that he had been working for the past year as a city planner for Port Orange.  Though it seems like a good fit for a geography major, he didn't get much of a sense of fulfillment or satisfaction.  He felt like it was time to start on a path to find both of those in his career...

So now he's working on pre-reqs for med school.

Event 4
While in Orlando, I went with Brock to the singles ward there.  As luck would have it, I ran into an old coworker of mine from the library days, Ben Gardner.  Ben is working on his master's degree in vocal performance. And he's good: He sang in the BYU Singers which is no small feat.  I should mention that he is studying at Florida State University in Tallahassee which is a good 3 hours or so from Orlando, so he presumably doesn't go there very often.

In catching up with Ben, I found out that while he enjoyed studying vocal performance and fully intended on finishing the degree (he has one semester left), he realized that he wasn't going to feel like he made the world better by singing an opera.

So after he finishes his master's degree, he's going to work towards...you guessed it...med school.

The Final Whopper
The events above happened in three weeks time.  I don't know about you, but I am a person who doesn't believe that strings of experiences such as these are merely coincidental.  I called my mom to tell her what had transpired since her question a few weeks ago.  After the explanation, I asked her to tell me what this all meant.

Depending on your experience with your parents, this may seem like a completely reasonable or absurd question.  Not only is my mom a good friend of mine, but she has an eerie habit of being right about certain key things in my life.  Thus, her answer struck a chord with me:

"I know exactly what it means.  You just have to figure it out."

Fair enough, I thought.

We chatted for a bit longer, after which, I told my Floridamigos (that's Florida + amigos and I can't believe that isn't already a word) about the saga.  My friend Jake, who happens to be a pediatrician in residency, asked me if I'd thought about PA school.  The truth is, I had, but not for a very long time...as in, not since I'd returned home from serving as a missionary back in 2006.

So here I am.  Considering it again.  It sounds right.  I have no sense of regret about the prospect of going back to school.

Now a bit more prayer and a plan are in order.