Big

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reservedI am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Many of you have heard this story before. Sometimes it applies to families with special needs children, or great tragedies that alter the course of their life. I've loved it ever since I heard it, because honestly it applies to everyone in some way. Life never turns out how you plan it. That is what makes it life, and that is what makes it magical. We all need to trust in God a little more.

Um...I have some big news. Some really big news. As in, not sure I'm even going to post this news news.

I went and met with nursing advisement.

I told them how hard I've been trying to make up for past mistakes and be good enough for them. And how badly I want to be a nurse. And how I've always wanted to be a nurse. And how I need to lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees.

And they said "Yes. You are going to be a good nurse. But maybe you need to get there a different way."

You're actually being nice to me? Usually you're so crabby. Okay, tell me more.

So this is the advice the advisement gave me:

Change your major to a quick major

Graduate as soon as possible, so that you have a bachelor's under your belt

While graduating as quick as possible, finish the University of Utah's nursing prerequisites

As soon as you graduate, apply to the U's Accelerated Nursing Program, which is a 14 month program, and requires you to have a previous bachelor's degree.

The whole process will take just as long, and likely even shorter, than it would take to sit around BYU trying to get in to their program.

Oh, and did I mention you can still apply to our program again whenever you want, if you feel like it?

I saw a sign walking to one of my new classes that said "The Whole is More than the Sum of its Parts."

That really stuck on me. This whole major change and everything is just a different means to an end, what matters is that I get to that end. And even grander, I am a daughter of the most High God. I am more than my degrees and accomplishments.

So.

That is my plan.

I'm thinking of majoring in Human Development. Something I've always been interested in, and now the Lord has given me the gift of being able to study both fields that I love.

So I'm going to Holland instead. And it will be beautiful. And it is still hard to think of doing things differently than I had always hoped and dreamed and planned. Its hard to even publish this post, because I feel self conscious and insecure about it. But I'm choosing faith. I'm choosing happy. And it's going to be a lovely ride.