Thriving, not just surviving.

Let me tell you a little story. The spring of this year Trevor came to a realization. He realized that he didn’t like nursing, in fact, he hated it. He worked as an ICU nurse in a hospital for two years and would come home with stories that I couldn’t even comprehend. He dealt with difficult people, difficult situations, and death on a daily basis. I remember coming home from work and feeling stressed because my event location couldn’t fit enough people or I didn’t have enough hotel rooms. Then, Trevor would tell me about his day and all my work stresses seemed trivial. The hours, hospital policies, and ungrateful patients would take its toll on anyone. Nurses are seriously special people.

Trevor worked hard for his Bachelors of Nursing for four years and had planned to continue his education and get a Masters of Nursing. But, one day we were forced to sit down and look at  where we were going and what we were doing. We hardly saw each other with the way our schedules were set up. Trevor worked nights and weekends so he could take care of Liam during the day while I was at work. Every day he worked we would do a quick exchange of the kiddo and be on our separate ways. We were surviving, but not really thriving. I realize a lot of people probably have similar situations and make it work, but it wasn’t working for us. We felt  a sense of urgency to make a change when in early summer one of my co-workers died suddenly and tragically. It hit me hard. Life is way too short and way too fragile to not be happy now. We started talking about other career options for Trev. We didn’t want to just survive. We wanted to thrive and we were in a perfect situation to make that change.

Trev was good at nursing. He was a leader in his unit and was moving up so the thought of walking away from a career in health care seemed out of the question. However, as we explored other options Trev became more and more interested in IT careers.  I had always thought Trevor would thrive in the IT world. He was so good with any type of technology and would easily get caught up on trying to figure out a solution to a electronic problem.  So, even though it was a hard decision, we made the leap. Trevor quit his nursing job and started an eleven week boot camp computer coding program. It has been hard. He has doubted himself. We haven’t seen a lot of since he has dedicated his time to being successful in this program. Trevor has gone from the top of a field to starting back and the beginning. He would hate that I’m posting this because he hates that ooey gooey online husband bragging… But, I am so proud of him. He has worked his butt off and has been an amazing father and husband through it all. Like tonight, he is taking me on a surprise date which I was going to do for him, but he beat me to it! In a week and half he will be done with the boot camp and it makes me so happy to see him love what he is doing. Life might not always take you where you think you are headed, but everything always works out for the best. I am excited to see what the next couple months have in store for us!