The Wing It Life

In the About Me post I really wanted to focus on the blog and why I’m doing it so you all could get an idea of what I’m going for. Fun, humorous, laid back reading. I want this to be conversational, so grammar police forgive me now if I make some errors here and there. 

So where do I start?

I’m a Pisces for those interested in that realm of the world and skies. Sometimes it’s fun to believe in your horoscope, but only when it’s like, “hey the skies are telling me you’re going to make money,” and then you get a paycheck for 50 cents. What a jokester the universe is!

Anyways, I grew up doing competitive gymnastics until I went to college. This is definitely where my ‘wing it’ lifestyle began. Not to brag, but I was a pretty ok gymnast, BUT I was literally always hurt because I’m the clumsiest person on the planet (and because I would just wing things praying I lived).  See below.

via GIPHY

After high school, I went to James Madison University, a little/big liberal arts school seated in the Shenandoah Mountains. Sidebar- If you have never been to the Shenandoah Mountains, GO! The sunsets are some of the most amazing sunsets I’ve ever seen, there’s great hiking trails (with waterfalls), and tons of breweries and vineyards.

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Ok back on track, at JMU I studied Kinesiology/Exercise Science with a minor in Exceptional Education. I was a Varsity Cheerleader (GO DUKES!) and a member of the Student Government Association. Both cheering and SGA were things I had never done before, but they can fall into the “I just “winged it”” category. Winged it? Wanged it? Wung it? All of those sound weird…you get it. 

I’m sure some of you know of the never ending gymnast vs. cheerleader rivalry. Well, I’m here to say, both sports (yes, sports) are respectively hard and I’m clumsy in both. At the first game of my senior year, the camera dude for the jumbo-tron was filming me do a back tuck. I had poms in my hands and was confident I would be fine (totally winging it), because I hadn’t eaten s*** since I was like 12.

Picture me all spirited and cheerleader-like.

I go for the flip and BOOM. My hands slipped off my legs and I ate it hard.

Face full of astroturf ON.THE.JUMBOTRON. for 25K people to see. Awesome. Great life moment where you just get up, wipe the grass and tiny-plastic-tire pieces off your face and wave like nothing happened.

JMU was amazing and I loved every bit of my experience there, except meeting my husband (mostly joking). When I met him, he was the most obnoxious next door neighbor a girl could ever have.

I met him at the beginning of August 2013 and it was downhill/uphill from there. Initially, I didn’t like him because he was a boy with a crush and never left me alone (not in a weird way), but I also had some personal self things to work on. Eventually, I realized I’m just as obnoxious as him, and I liked how he never gave up on me. He was charming in a weird way, but it worked. We’re both a-holes and we meld well together.

When I met him my life plan was to graduate and go to physical therapy school. Well, naturally meeting him plowed that plan down because he knew he was going to become a USMC Officer, and I knew this relationship was going to be a long term commitment. So, I decided to become a nurse and it has worked out PERFECTLY.

Looking back, if I had gone to  PT school, I still would be in school now and we would’ve worked it out with distance, but I don’t know, it just wasn’t in my/our cards. The drive for PT school wasn’t there for me. Nursing is the best fit for what I wanted.

How did I get from my PT school idea to my nursing school idea you ask?

You guessed correct (if you guessed), I winged it. 

I had a slight panic attack a couple of weeks after graduation and realized my PT tech job was similar to what I would be doing as a PT and there were things I just didn’t like. So, I Googled jobs/careers that I could get degrees in quickly in the health field. Nursing popped up and I was quickly reminded that I had applied to nursing schools as a back up during my senior year. I really don’t know why I applied to them, but I’m glad I did. In my panic I remembered I had been accepted to The George Washington University School of Nursing in Feb 2015.

I quickly called them and asked if I could accept my offer, and thankfully they said, “yes”. Within a month I moved and started nursing school in August 2015 with absolutely NO IDEA what I was getting myself into. Classic me just winging it.

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Funny story, I’m actually kind of squeamish. Like I cannot watch Grey’s Anatomy or any of those shows that get all graphic with surgeries and what not. I get this weird feeling like sympathy pains or something and have to change the channel. When I’m in surgeries/c-sections I’m mostly fine, just don’t put me all up in it and we’re cool. I’ll admire from afar. I know I’m weird.

Anyways, in nursing school I really loved women’s health and labor and delivery, so I thought that’s what I would do when I graduated. Well, naturally when I moved from D.C. to Pensacola, Florida with my now husband, I was a new grad desperate to get a job. I applied to L&D, Postpartum, Pediatric, and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit jobs.

One day, I get a call to set up an interview, I accepted, and asked which job the interview was for. The woman replied, “NICU”. Instant PANIC. I wasn’t in a position to decline a job, but I was again slightly freaking out. I had never stepped foot in a NICU and all I knew about it was the scary stuff you see on tv. Well, thank goodness this was another winging it situation because I LOVED IT.

You know how sometimes people say, “it’s not like how they show it in the movies/on tv”? Well, the NICU is now how they show it on tv (at least in my opinion). Yes, it has it’s sad moments, but there are far more happy ones. Just talking about it makes my heart so warm.

People ask me why I chose NICU and my response is always that it chose me. I had no intention of ever being a NICU nurse. In school I even traded my NICU day with a friend for her L&D day because she wanted to be a NICU RN. I’m so glad that the manager who hired me saw something in me that fit the job description, because man I love those little tiny humans.

That’s pretty much me and my wing it lifestyle in a nutshell. I have plenty more stories of how I wing my life, but I’ll save those for later blog posts. I know this was slightly long, but if you stuck around and read all of this hopefully you see what I’m trying to convey and enjoy it.

Winging it can be scary, but thrilling all at the same time and it’s usually totally worth it. I’ve learned so much and have had so many opportunities, because I’m just going after things and doing my best at them. Hopefully you can find some inspiration in my story.

And if all else fails, just wing it.

-Danni

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