// Valedictorian

Mike graduated (the first phase) of nursing school on Friday! You may remember last year when we announced he'd be pursuing this career path, I was oh so excited and ready for him to get started. Well, a year has come and gone and boy am I glad that's over! Y'all, this year has been the hardest of our lives. I'm not even going to sugarcoat it. There were a lot of tears, a lot of nights going to bed at radically different hours, lots of missing each other and feeling generally overwhelmed and stretched entirely too thin. I think we would have both felt that way even if we didn't have a new baby to toss into the mix... but that dangerous combination was almost too much to bear at times.

Mike has worked so hard and he put in so many hours over the past 12 months. I've always known he was a dedicated, capable guy, but this past year showed me just how incredible he is. And that's exactly what landed him the top spot in his class! Yep, he was the valedictorian! Such a testament to his perseverance and work ethic. He still has to go to school this entire week (because that makes a lot of sense...) and study for the NCLEX coming up, but then he'll be home for a couple of weeks potentially while he waits for his NCLEX placement and then hunts for a job. Part of me is so relieved to soon be a two-income family rather than trying to juggle my design clients and painting clients in between naps and feeds, but I'm also nervous about the hours he'll be scheduled and the hectic world he's about to be thrown into. Not only that, but he will start with his pre-req classes for RN school soon, too. We'll have ~2 years of RN school to struggle through, and then another few years of grad school until he gets his Masters and becomes a Nurse Practitioner. The goal has been Dr. Michael Flynn, DNP when it's all said and done, but I'm personally taking it one day at time. I think anyone else with a spouse in the nursing field can attest to just how difficult it can be to be their partner, especially in the thick of the schooling. I'm hoping this was our hardest year, and that things will get a little easier since Linden is getting older and we both know sort of what to expect from nursing school.

I knew it'd be difficult, but I was absolutely not prepared for just how hard it would be... on both of us. We're still not out of the woods just yet. Boards to be taken, licenses to be acquired, jobs to find and new routines to get in the swing of. My hope is that if we can make it through this, we can make it through anything. 

I'm so proud of my husband. So proud that I even suggested he buy a new guitar and amp... so clearly all the stress has made me insane haha xo