Hello, friends! Tomorrow is the big day! Tomorrow is the day that I officially start this new chapter of my life – grad school! This is my last post I am writing from California, ah! It is honestly quite wild that the time has already come. I feel like it has been forever since I applied and got accepted into OT school, but time has seem to speed to this moment. People told me that the time will just pass you by but I didn’t really believe it until I spent it frantically packing clothes and decluttering my room this week, lol.

I am feeling all kinds of emotions right now – excited, apprehensive, and tired (because I have been procrastinating on my packing lol). I ended my job as a behavioral therapist for over two years just last week, and let me tell you that it was such a bittersweet moment! I am happy to have known that I was able to form powerful bonds with the kiddos that I worked with, but it is also sad to see them go. I did learn quite a bit that I will cherish and utilize as I evolve into a future clinician.

Honestly, I really do not know what to expect, and I think that the hardest part about any change in life includes not knowing what is to come. I have been preparing myself as much as I can for graduate school because I am intrinsically a planner at heart. At the same time, I think I’ve stepped back a bit on that because I just want to follow the process and let this journey unravel organically. Folks have told me that I should use this free time that I have to enjoy it with my family and friends and also establish a good self-care routine because I will most definitely need to ground and re-center myself when times get difficult and overwhelming. I have been enjoying watching endless DCOMs with my sisters (I highly recommend The Cheetah Girls series) and visiting family friends all over SoCal.

I honestly am so thankful and so appreciative of the endless support of my community around me. I feel so entirely blessed, from all of the generous donations on my GoFundMe to the sweet messages that have affirmed my abilities to succeed and make the impact in the world that I’ve been wanting to for so long now. The journey to getting to this point was not an easy one at any point, for I learned that you really do not have control over life’s events. However, Knowing that God has always and will always literally be with me no matter how much I try to figure it out by myself is what gives me inner peace and hope for the future. By next week, I will no longer be a pre-OT student but I will officially be a doctor of occupational therapy student who is ready to transform into becoming a loving, caring, and impactful OT! 

This post was kind of all over the place, I know. That is how I am currently feeling right now! I am really excited to share with you the highs, lows, and in-betweens of my OT school journey! I will try to be as consistent as possible, but you know, grad school will be a busy time so I hope you give me some grace!

Peace and love,

Irene