Good morning, Happy Hump day!!!!
I hope your week has been going well. We have officially hit the midway point to the weekend! I am sitting awaiting my husband’s surgery to be complete. Nothing major but any good vibes you can send this way I will graciously accept.
As I sit and wait in this waiting room. I just wanted to talk a bit about what my profession is and how I got to my career. As some of you may already know I am a Registered Dental Hygienist and I am passionate about what I do as a clinician. I have over a decade of experience in the profession and even after my formal education has come to an end, I continue to learn more and more with each passing year. This likely why I continue to challenge myself even outside of my professional life by constantly learning new hobbies and learning new cooking techniques.
My path to the profession of dental hygiene was a long one in comparison to many others. I attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for undergraduate studies. However, I had no idea what I wanted to do in life. I know so many of my people that knew exactly where they saw themselves in high school. I was not one of those people by any close margin. I had no idea what I wanted in life, I hardly even knew who I was as a person. The only thing I knew in my heart was I was destined to serve, to use my hands in healthcare.
I moved back home after uni and took some time to discover myself. That journey to discovery ended in many experiences that would shape who I am today: A steadfast, head strong, and independent woman. I tried my hand at several things including working in the hospitality industry, becoming a Certified Nursing Aid, as well as a Certified Pharmacy Technician. After a few years of adventure I finally decided to buckle down and apply to school. The issue was, what did I want to become?
I thought to myself, Jenn, you were meant to be a NURSE! What better way to serve people than to become a nurse. Well, disappointingly, I did not get accepted into any nursing programs locally. It is not something that I am proud of, being rejected by program after program. I only share this because we all get these ideas that this is decision we have made for ourselves really is the ONLY way. The quote, “everything happens for a reason” really resonates with me through this experience.
After several rejections, my mom asked me to try applying to other healthcare programs. She came to me out of concern because I was becoming extremely discouraged by what I felt was failure. She urged me to apply to the Dental Hygiene Program at Central Piedmont Community College. I vehemently refused, thinking that she didn’t believe in me. Her reasoning for encouragement was simply this: what was meant for me will surely be mine. What she told me was that maybe my service was meant to be somewhere aside from nursing. That I may possess the right heart but that was not where I was meant to be in life.
I looked up information out of curiosity for the Dental Hygiene program. I decided to quietly apply, gathered all my necessary documents and turned in my application on the day of the deadline. I still remember the day the response arrived at my parents’ home address. I got a call from my mom while I was working in the IV room at the hospital pharmacy. My mom told me, “you got something in the mail. It’s a small envelope.” The sadness and disappointment was rising within me. Fighting back tears, I asked her to open the envelope and give me the bad news. To my astonishment, I was ACCEPTED.
Notoriously, a small envelope typically meant rejection. That is what my past rejections arrived in, small envelopes. To learn I was accepted was a feeling that I can only describe as relief. Finally, someone saw my worth. Someone recognizes that I am capable. I do not encourage anyone to place value in other’s thoughts but truly that is how I felt in this moment.
That acceptance into the program lead me to this profession. The natural progression of honing my skills throughout my educational career made me realize that it was true what my mom told me. It was not that I was not good enough to become a nurse, I just was not meant to be a nurse. I realized during my Dental Hygiene program that this came easy to me: the written education, the training in clinic, and most importantly the communication with patients.
I spent so much time being down and out because I did not meet the goals I set for myself. All a long I was putting all my eggs into one basket and not realizing that there is more out there than just that one goal. On paper, I was superb. Great grades, I had my certifications, my experience in pharmacy, etc but I just was looking in the wrong place for the area to serve.
I hope you that what you take away from my journey is this: That it is not the end of the world when you are unable to meet a particular goal. It is important to be able to maneuver yourself in a way that allows you to segway into different paths that maybe better suited for you. I never saw myself as a Dental Hygienist but here I am. A decade into my career and still loving it. Sometimes things happen the way they are meant to be. As my husband would say, you are placed in certain situations to become who you were meant to be and learning valuable lessons along the way.
Thank you for reading this long post about my journey.
Comment if you have questions or want to share your journey with me. I would love to hear from you.
Xoxo
Jenn aka your Dental Hy-JENN-ist.