- I married the love of my life on Star Wars Day 2019. Being in a supportive, healthy relationship with someone who I know 100% has my back has been life-changing. I do not know how I would have gotten through the last 6? 7? years without him.
- I quit my job as an Emergency Medical Dispatcher shortly before my wedding in 2019, not because I had decided to be a ~TRAD WIFE~ long before the trend existed, but because we were planning on moving to Arizona shortly after the wedding and there was a lot of coordinating that needed to be done between the wedding and the move and my first Master's Degree, which I was about halfway through at that time.
- I got a Master's Degree in Public Health! I did this online through the University of Arizona. Ironically I started the program before my husband and I ever started discussing moving to Arizona, but our first house in Tucson was walking distance from the University. The irony is not lost on me that I got a degree in public health during a global pandemic - I graduated in 2020 during peak COVID times - in a state that doesn't really give a shit about public health and so I could not find a job in public health during a global pandemic.
- We moved to Arizona in July because that was the time that worked best for us (I had a short break between semesters) and it was terrible. Someday I will write about the worst move ever, but that day is not today. In retrospect, I should have seen it as a sign from the universe, even though don't super believe in signs from the universe, that terrible things were coming. And not the usual Arizona terrible things like six months of every day being hotter than 100 or cockroaches (so many cockroaches!) or being perpetually dehydrated and my mouth always kind of tasting like sand/dirt. New and exciting horrible things, historic horrible things! Literally eight months after we moved COVID happened, well more like 5 months after we moved, but it took a while (and dismantling some important institutions (Thanks FOTUS)) to really get going.
- I helped vaccinate 100,000 people with the COVID-19 vaccine! This feels like a million years ago now, but after I graduated from my first Master's program I could not find a job in public health and ended up working at a local hospital in registration (you know...that annoying person at the front desk that asks for your name, birthdate, insurance info, and firstborn). My job in registration was a little unorthodox as far as these types of jobs usually work because it was outside in a tent at a fairground in Tucson, Arizona and I didn't particularly care about insurance or payment because the COVID-19 vaccine was free. I only did this job for about 5 months - we started in January and shut down in May because Arizona is bloody hot and there was no way we could continue working outside.
- We moved back to the Pacific Northwest! The place where I was born (almost - that's a couple of hours south of where I live), the place where I was raised (since I was 5), the place where my husband and I met and fell in love and got married. The place of some of my best and worst experiences. Vantucky Washington, I have complicated feelings about you. But I really missed being close to my family and I desperately needed to be somewhere familiar, somewhere that felt like home, after the devastation of COVID.
- I got a Master's Degree in Biomedical Diagnostics! Technically it's a Master of Science in Biomedical Diagnostics but whatever. I also did this through an online program and also through a university in Arizona, but this time from Arizona State University (go Sun Devils?) and I did an accelerated program, which was rough. But two master's degrees in 4 years is bound to be rough no matter how you slice it.
- I learned how to knit, mostly to retain mobility in my hands, and because it’s super relaxing, but I love it! I’m currently making baby clothes for my friend whose wife is pregnant because I am excited for them!
- I am trying to learn to play the guitar! This was something I started because I was trying to retain the mobility in my hands but also because of TAYLOR SWIFT. I’m not particularly good at playing the guitar, but I really like it.
- I was diagnosed with ADHD and I finally had an answer to why I struggled through so much of my education and had to white-knuckle it through both master's degrees! I'm sure at some point I will talk about how I went undiagnosed until I was 36 years old (it's because of the patriarchy, FUCK THE PATRIARCHY!). Had I been diagnosed sooner I may have gotten the resources I needed to do well on the MCAT and may have gotten into medical school. Admittedly this has kind of worked out for me because of the myriad of health issues that I'm dealing with that would have made practicing medicine very, very difficult if not impossible.
- I got a super cool job in research! That I'm not going to talk about much here, just know that I am a ~*~super cool scientist ~*~!
- I had a lot
of health issues, this does not get an exclamation point because it was
terrible. It still is terrible, I have multiple chronic illnesses that have
changed my life, and not in a good way. I'm still learning how to live as a
disabled person and it's been bloody difficult. As if I, as a woman living in
America during this terrible time, don't have enough shit going on. I'm sure I
will talk about this more as it literally impacts my life every day, but hey,
what doesn't kill you makes you
stronger~*~ traumatized, but with a delightfully bleak sense of humor ~*~. After nearly a decade of working in emergency medicine, I did not know my sense of humor could get any darker, but oh boy has it!
** I got this photo from somewhere on the internet from someone who probably stole it from someone else on the internet and it feels so very appropriate today.**
