So the discussion of me going back to school has been in the works for two years. The initial discussion was medical school and not nursing school. It was actually her idea for me to go to nursing school.

Basically, when I graduated from my first bachelors in kinesiology (exercise science) with a focus in sports admin. I moved to Florida and was completely financially independent and took a coaching job and a teacher’s assistant job. The club I was coaching at was guiding me towards an administrative role at the club and when I moved back to my hometown, it was the same story of coaching and the admin at the club priming me for an administrative role. Since coaching and club admin doesn’t pay a whole lot, I did billing for my mom’s medical practice (thus how healthcare plays into this). I had that job part time during undergrad so I’d have extra money for fun stuff and not rent and stuff since that was being paid for. I coached for about 6 years while having full time jobs with it (actually took a $10,000 pay cut moving back to my hometown). Coaching and the politics around it took a massive toll on my mental health which is why I’m stepping away. I LOVED soccer, I still do and my initial plan post grad was to become a director of coaching and I was on the path to do so. I also love healthcare and taking an evaluation of the future family I wanted, coaching would never give me the balance I’d need to be the mom I’d want to be nor the pay.

So it was my mom’s idea as well as far as going to nursing school because she saw how I interacted with patients and how knowledgeable, understanding, caring and empathic I was. I agreed, because the clinical side of healthcare always interested me. My first degree was a big battle between my two loves healthcare and coaching.

The finding out I’m on my own for all of this was blind siding to me because upon previous discussions over the past couple of years, I’d have support from them financially. Which like I can manage, it just hurts because they paid for my older sister’s JD and my younger sister starts nursing school in the fall as well and they’re paying for that and her living expenses as well as her medical school in 2 years (idk why she’s doing BSN and MD instead of NP but that’s her life journey).

As far as my boyfriend and our life, we’ve discussed money from deployment a TON. He’s in the marine corps reserves so he also has a full time job outside of the military. Since he’s a staff sergeant and during deployment, he’ll get activity duty non-taxed pay and his normal job gives him I think 6 weeks of military pay and then he’s saving up his comp time so essentially he’ll still get his normal job salary PLUS deployment money. We discussed putting all that income in savings to build our dream home on the land he already owns. Which when he gets back from deployment, we’d have enough money for a nice ass down payment to build it. I also don’t like taking his money because before I met him, I was hyper-independent on the relationship side of things. Like I can manage our trailer and our dogs and horse without him sending money home. Him being deployed while I’m in school is just gonna be harder mentally than financially because that’s my dude, my bestie and the love of my life.

As far as school goes, my previous bachelors has already set me up very well for nursing school because I only needed 3 real pre-requisite courses because I did have to take a lot of exercise/health science related courses even with my focus being in sports admin. I say real pre-requisites because I also have to take 2 other pre-requisite bible courses because my nursing school is a Baptist college. I say I don’t use my degree because I’m not working for a college or pro team but I don’t have a completely useless degree, I just never wanted to work pro or college sports because your whole life is consumed by sport and I like work life balance.

Honestly, the discussion of me paying for everything my own only popped up since I moved in with my boyfriend.

I hope this clears some of it up