Big Decisions and not letting things stand in your way

For the past two years, I have been trying to convince myself that I want to be an English and History teacher. After my HSC results came in, I realized that all the time I had off school sick over the year had severely affected my marks and I would not be getting into any medicine or pre-med courses. I was a little bit heartbroken, but had been expecting it and knew it was for the better. 

The hunt was on for a new career, and I had only a few short weeks to make a decision on what I was to do for the rest of my life. My marks for English and History had been really, really good and I enjoyed the subjects so much, but ever since I was a little girl I had wanted to be a doctor and I still had a real fascination with the medical world. My two conflicting interests were tearing me different ways and the two career paths I decided between were teaching and midwifery. The appeal of 10 weeks holidays a year and good hours tore me away from the medical profession I'd so long desired and I chose teaching. 

I've now been studying literature, history and cultural studies for a year and a half, and while last year I enjoyed my studies immensely, changing to a new university this year has made me reconsider my career choice. I began to realize that I cannot picture myself standing up in front of a classroom for the rest of my life, and that I'm not challenged by the course work (a good thing for some but apparently I'm a weirdo who likes things to be hard?). 

So, after a few months of thinking, research and countless episodes watched of The Midwives and One Born Every Minute (they seriously need to make some Aussie midwife shows!) I have finally decided to change to midwifery! I put in my application yesterday and have already been accepted into nursing (which was my second choice and has the exact same first year subjects as midwifery) to start next semester! I have to wait to see what my marks are this semester before I find out if I also got into the Bachelor of Midwifery but I'm super excited anyway because I know I'm going to be able to do it whether I need to transfer again from nursing or not!

A big part of the reason I have spent 2 years trying to convince myself to be a teacher is my health. Even now, my close family and friends are concerned with how I will cope with night shifts and such physical work with lupus but I had to take the chance and make this decision. I may have lupus, but why should I let it control such an important decision in my life? I may not ever be able to work full time in my profession due to my illness, but the same goes for teaching as well. On the other hand, I could go into remission in a few years and if I hadn't taken this chance, I could really regret not following my dreams. 

I can't think of anything more magical than helping to bring new life into the world everyday as a profession. Being a midwife would be more than just a job to me. It would be a privilege to help women bring their babies safely earth side and I am very excited for my new career path!

Questions, Comments and Reflections. Oh, and Where I Have Been Lately.

I've been gone for a while. Well, physical I've still been in the same place as ever, but in Internetland, I've not been quite as "on the radar" as usual. My Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts have still been pretty active, and I've been scrolling away the hours on Pinterest and Tumblr, but my blog presence has been practically non-existent. I'm sure this has left some of you wondering why, but I'm not sure there is really any answer. Right now my unread posts on Bloglovin' stand at 664 though, a number I can no longer ignore and I feel as though I need to jump back in to my online life. I'm ready for it!

In the last few weeks, life has been crazy. I started back at uni, and all you students out there will know what a massive time-consuming monster that is. I have had to make the decision to move house, I have cried over that decision, stressed over that decision and had multiple panic attacks over that decision, and that has also taken up a lot of my time, and on top of all of this, I have been sick. Not just with my usual CFS aches and pains and exhaustion, though. On top of that I have had a flu, and I guess that is a big part of why I have been absent from the blog lately. But before I give you all a proper update on what I've been up to, there is something I'd like to discuss. Blog guilt. Or rather, my lack of it over the past few weeks.

I'm sure that many of you bloggers out there know exactly what I mean when I talk about blog guilt. You will all know how it gnaws at your soul when you can't tend to your blog. How even though you know that you need time out, have taken too  much on, or just don't have anything to say right now, you can feel the guilt nagging at your brain, tugging at your heart and eating your soul whenever you go on a hiatus from blog world. It's a horrible feeling, and one I have felt many times, but over the last week or so, I haven't felt it once.

Does this make me a bad blogger? Does the fact I haven't posted in a week render me hopeless and doomed to fail in this overly competitive, PR driven world? Do I not even care about my blog anymore? These are the questions that I have been asking myself over the last few days, and they have been nagging at my brain more than blog guilt ever has. I'm not sure what it is about blogging, but this fun little hobby has a way of taking over your life after a while. You end up spending more and more time sat behind a computer, and less and less out in the real world doing things. You stress over content, over pictures, over how many times you should post a week. You compare yourself to other bloggers, stress yourself out over why no PR companies have contacted you yet, and find yourself getting caught up in silly little numbers. If you need to take a break for whatever reason, the guilt shimmies in, and the thing that you once loved to do all of a sudden feels like a massive chore. You want to do well with your blogging, you want to have hundreds of followers, and get sent free stuff and have people respect you, but in that moment, it all feels like too much. You wonder if you should even be blogging at all.

I have felt like this too many times. I have felt like a total blog failure just because I'm not noticed by PR or because so-and-so started blogging at the same time as me, and look how many thousands of followers she has. Feeling like that is total crap. Getting caught up in the business side of blogging, in trying to be successful and trying to be better than everyone else is total crap. I don't want that, I just want to write and make friends and read about all the fantastic things that my friends from all over the world have been getting up to lately, which is exactly why I decided today that my lack of blog guilt is a good thing. Not being guilty over not posting for a few days is the most liberating feeling! Finally I feel like I can step back and start enjoying blogging for what it really is again - a hobby. I'm removing advertising from my sidebar, having a total blog overhaul and starting fresh with blogging for me, and for fun without getting caught up in the competitiveness. It's going to be great, and you know, if good things come my blog's way, that will be a bonus but I'm not feeling pressured to stick to a schedule, or post about this or that, or gain followers. What happens happens and I'll be grateful for the supportive friendships that I make along the way.