NotReady in Tulsa

Tomorrow begins my journey to physical therapy school. It will be a long sixteen months, but I think I can handle it.

I suppose you're wondering what possessed this English major to change ships. Did I wake up one morning and say, "Hmmm...today I think I'll try to be a physical therapist"? No.

The health care industry has interested me for a long time. Part of me has always blocked it out of my mind and possibility because a) my dad's encouraged it for so long and b) because I am afraid of failure. PT school is certainly a poor man's version of med school, but it's quite logically the better fit for me. Less time, less money, less pressure with all of the benefits I want in a job.

As a physical therapist, I'll be able to help people. Essentially, I can control situations better when my goal is to serve people not gain their money and favor like so many of the jobs I had considered.

If you think about it, half of the jobs in the market involve manipulating people. Sales, law, public relations, tax things, finance. It's about attracting, maintaining, and capitalizing. Healthcare is the only safe option because people will always need it. There will always be old Betty Lous that fall and break their hips and need physical therapists to teach them to survive again. Independence is the key to vitality when you're old. After you lose that, the will to live slowly ebbs away.

It's not going to be easy. I have no expectations of the same grades I saw during my English career. But I come willing to fight. It will be messy, probably even bloody, and plenty embarrassing. I will try to keep a straight face.

If I've been dangling over the Waters to Come since graduation, tomorrow's the day it all begins. Say hello to an erratic and difficult semester of Anatomy and Chemistry and their respective labs. Nothing can prepare me for the unexpected, but I just pray that my first tastes won't have me desperately climbing up the rope. Either way, I'm still above water and I have to fall in sometime. (end ridiculous, drawn-out metaphor)