I’m not sure where this path goes. Actually I suppose we really never know. But it felt like I knew what path I was in before. Is that because I was following the approved path for me?  I feel like everything has become a possibility for me. Wandering off the standard path, my children grown, suddenly free, renting my home, selling my car, quitting my job- and now, done with my first year of doctoral school. It can be rather dizzying actually.

This summer I am heading to Geneva to do my summer practicum with WHO. I m so excited and have so many questions- what do they do? Will I have anything to offer?  What will the General Health Assembly be like?  What about ICM?  Can I offer any impact for birth centers and midwives? At that start of grad school there were moments I wondered what I was doing.  Yes, I love catching babies and I know what I am going and I felt confident.  Suddenly I was like a freshman in college, doe eyed, a bit lost and knowing absolutely nothing.  My classmates, although clearly very much younger then I was, seemed to know so very much.  There was a new language- M&E, outcomes, behavioral change objectives, cohorts, causality, linear regression, vectors…I found it fascinating and at the same time felt I was nevver going to grasp this new world.  I was so used to being competent and suddenly I was a novice, but a really old one.  What had I done?

I knew for certian, I wasnt going back.  I didn’t want to go bac to that life.  It was a good life.  I really loved it while I believed in that path.  But suddenly the world was possible, and I wanted to expolore it all…so, here I go.