Would you believe me if I told you 10 years ago I almost dropped out of pharmacy school?

I walked out of St John’s pharmacy building after checking one of my exam grades, in tears. I was really worried about how the rest of the semester would go. I failed an exam of a class that banked on just two exams for your final grade. Nothing else. No homework, participation, etc. And if you failed that class, it barred you from taking the rest of the semester’s classes because of the way St John’s sets up the program. It’s all or nothing, which is a really terrible idea for a program honestly and sets you up for failure. Nevermind that their ‘teaching’ methods are honestly a joke. But back to the point. I was on the brink of “Is this really for me?,” “How am I ever going to pull this off?,” “There’s no way I can pass with a high enough score to even out this failing grade…” I was ready to walk into the dean’s office and tell him that was it. I was done.

So I did. I walked into the pharmacy building the next day to talk to the head chair and… was talked out of it, lol. You know one of the funniest things about St John’s (at the time at least) was that the professors are absolute hell out to fail you, but Dean Mangione and Assistant Dean Joseph Etzel are absolute sweethearts. They somehow talked me off the ledge and back into the fray. I wish I remembered how but all I remember was walking away from that meeting and working towards giving it one last shot. I mustered up my courage to ask my classmates and friends for help and in the end, the people who are still in my life today, are the people that came through. They sent me all their notes, exam study tips, old exams, study sheets, etc. They would text me after their own exam, circling everything they could remember so I would know what to focus on and study. And then in 2012, spoilers, I walked out of those halls with a diploma and pharmacy degree in hand. Later that summer, I passed my licensing exam and was officially a pharmacist.

I did a lot in the past decade when I look back at it. If I had told 2010 me where I would be in 2020, I would've thought she was joking. I mean, I dreamed and had goals but I never really thought I would get it all done. I had no idea back then what it took to plan and execute a wedding. How to buy a car. How to buy a house. Hell, how to take care of your own house as a homeowner. How to take care of shit every time your car decides it wants you to throw more money into it to fix something. How to make your own travel plans. How to travel. How to handle getting sued. How to do your taxes. How to hire a lawyer. How to manage a business like a well oiled machine. How to train people to work the way you want and build a team. How to handle rude and sometimes racist customers hellbent on fighting you and trying to get you to break the law for them. How to fight the red devil and fight fire with fire when being bamboozled by an evil corporation. How to go on job interviews and win them over. How to figure out if the job is right for you and if you're being lowballed. How to adjust to a new job with lower pay but better quality of life in the long run so you downsize to make ends meet. How to live on your own and have to cook and prepare your own meals. How to save and budget. How to entertain guests and throw house/dinner parties. How to go to physical therapy to correct body movement issues so you can run again. How to have balance in your relationships so that both of you are happy. How to set aside time for each other when you're on opposite busy schedules and give the other person room to grow. How to maintain your friendships despite schedules not aligning and how to recognize when to cut the cord on the toxic ones. How to exercise. How to eat clean. How to lose weight and stay on the right track. How to maintain an active lifestyle. How to adult 101. How to, how to, how to.

Every hurdle is scary when you don’t know how to do something. It’s uncomfortable. It makes you feel like giving up a lot, at times. It feels like the little engine that could. You’re just pushing up a hill, worried the whole time that everything is going to crash and burn. Until you finally get through it and you look back and you’re like DAMN. I DID THAT.

And sometimes, like my pharmacy school experience, you’re going to fail. You’re going to fall down a few times and feel like you hit rock bottom. But it doesn’t mean you FAILED-FAILED. It doesn’t mean the end. It just means you gotta get back up and try again. Try something different. Try harder. Ask for help. Look for another way.

This was also me in the past decade as I struggled with my weight issues for a few years trying to find out what worked for my body in order to properly lose the weight I was piling on. I thought cardio and HIIT workouts would help but saw no results. When I finally broke down and reached out for help, a friendly and willing gym member took me on and pushed me through to help me get the results I wanted so badly. I learned discipline, patience and consistency. I learned that weight lifting would not make me ‘bulky.’ And it wasn’t just for guys. It would actually tone me more than any amount of cardio ever would. I learned that my portions were way out of control. I learned to cut back and eat smaller portions and how to select the right foods to lose weight, maintain weight, and to reduce my body’s bloat problems. I learned I actually really like working out and now I continue to do it as part of my daily routine to feel normal and to give me a boost of energy to start my day.

I could go on. There are so many trial and errors, fails, etc that I did in the past 10 years. And they all taught me the same thing, I would say. I am resilient and I am stronger than I know in moments of adversity.

I get asked a lot on how I built such a ‘perfect’ life but there’s nothing easy or perfect about it. My life only looks easy on the internet because let’s face it, no one is posting their failures. But trust me, I’m there struggling and working through it too, like everyone else. I know we all feel like we’re less than perfect but trust me when I tell you that EVERYONE is going through it. The problem truly is that you’re comparing your timeline to someone else’s. But social media is powerful both ways. It also allows people to open up and be vulnerable in sharing their story because they feel courage in other people sharing theirs. It should also give you hope too. If that person can make it through their day despite their obstacles, you can make it through too. Don’t ever feel like you’re less than perfect just because another person on social media’s life looks like sunshine Barbie. You also don’t know what it took for them to get there or what they’re going through. You don’t know their story. But you do know yours and only you have the power to change its course if you don’t like where it’s currently heading. You just have to be willing to put in the work. Remember, no one said it was going to be easy, but I can tell you from my past 10 years of slowly building and putting my life together, it’ll be worth it. And I’m still working on it every day, one small step at at time.

Some of my hurdles for my next decade are conquering my student loan debt and managing my mortgage. Working on building my savings to be comfortable enough for if and when we decide to have kids. And if that happens, that’s going to be an even bigger hurdle on its own. Ideally, I would like to have a kid before I’m 36 if we do go down that path. I would love to have a dragon baby, same as me and my baby sister. But if we choose not to, we’re actually okay with that too. I’d also ideally would like to move out of NY one day and live in another state or another country. I just haven’t figured out the logistics in terms of pharmacy license transfer or just an all around career change. And sadly the places I want to live, aren’t exactly cheap either. But at least my husband is on the same page and willing to move when I’m ready. I’ll always be an NY girl at heart, but I do feel like there’s more out there for me. And if it falls through and I end up having to move back to NY, well, that’s okay too. It’s not the end. It’s a learning process. And when I talk to people who have made the move, it feels doable. I just have to be in a more financially stable stage of life to be more successful at making the move work. I also do have to downsize because if I eventually do move, I don’t want to take everything with me. I actually kind of want to start fresh. I want to work on that this year actually. Getting rid of a lot of clutter in my life. It’s funny because my personality is definitely EXTRA AF, but sometimes I wish I was a more simpler person in some ways. I think I’m going to get rid of a lot of jewelry and accessories and obnoxious VS bras sitting around in my closet untouched. Sometimes I want to throw it all out and hit the reset button. Maybe that’s what my 30s and this new decade is going to be about. Re-invention. Rebirth. Reborn into my next stage of life. My style has definitely toned down a lot since college days of 2010, that’s for sure. Some things have stayed the same and some things I’ve moved on from. I used to be afraid of throwing stuff out, thinking I might want this or need this later on, but I’ve learned to let go. There will always be something else.

I’m scared of failing as I tackle on the next stage of my life but I do believe at this point in my life, I do have enough support systems to help cushion the fall and help me get back on my feet when the time comes. I’m scared of taking the risks I know I’m going to have to take when I finally make the jumps I keep putting off because of my fear, but I’m working on learning to accept the failures to come as well as looking at life as “what IF I succeed?” instead of looking at all the worse case scenarios. I should plan accordingly to WHEN I succeed instead of prepping myself for if I don’t since the failures are just small stepping stones to push me further back up. This is probably why I’m so lost right now. I finished everything I set out to do post college but I never planned for anything after that. I need to set some new long term goals now that the old dreams are no longer dreams. I have no idea what I really want to accomplish in the next 10 years besides getting rid of my financial shackles and then traveling the world with the boy and my loved ones. I am also afraid of setting goals though because of the fear of failure. I mean, you can’t be disappointed if you didn’t have expectations set up, right? But there’s no fun in that. With great risk, there is also the possibility of greater rewards. I can’t and I shouldn’t live my life in fear. There are plenty of people out there with half my potential risking it and killing the game. So I really need to step up and take a chance and get through these hurdles. I need to and want to find more mountains to climb!

What are YOU looking to hurdle through for the next decade? Let’s see where I end up in the next 10 years!