"It's funny how our perceptions can be so off..."

Hi everyone, it's been a while since I last blogged. As some of you may know (or not know), I made the decision to continue my education further and go to pharmacy school. And I couldn't be happier to be where I am now. I've had the most wonderful weekend spending time with my friends and being able to (hopefully) represent my school well.

I didn't have the easiest or happiest transition into pharmacy school. Leaving home and my central support system was really difficult, but I've adjusted and have gotten used to life in a city. It's been an incredibly emotional journey for me, but I am really grateful for every moment. Yes, even the less pleasant ones because they've led up to this.

The title of this post is a tribute to the medical TV show, Scrubs. The full quote (or rather the part that I love the most) goes like this: "It's funny how our perceptions can be so off, like when you're searching for a place to fit in and you don't even realize you've been there the whole time."

I always wanted to fit in everywhere I went immediately. I wanted to have friends instantly. But realistically speaking, it usually doesn't work that way. There is no shortcut to feeling like you belong or even making friends. I've had to relearn that over and over again. Even though I only started school 6 weeks ago, I feel like I'm at a point where I can say with some confidence and a very full heart that I am in the right place with the right people at the right time.

I've had moments where I falter and feel inadequate, where I wonder if I'm really in the right place for me. But I am. My school made the decision to have me just as much as I made the decision to join them. If my insecurities didn't weigh so heavily, I would have made my realization much sooner.

I wondered when I would have this feeling of belonging like Elliot did in Scrubs. I waited and hoped for it to happen. And I can't quite tell when it finally sunk in, I can't quite pinpoint the exact moment. Was it the day I met my P2 mentor? Or was it on a Friday morning while I waited for class to start and while waiting was able to talk to one of my classmates/friends? Was it right before my first pharmaceutics/biopharm exam when I opened up to a classmate/friend? Or was it last night when the girls and I had game night (and I totally won the top 300 game)? I don't know. But somewhere in between everything that has happened, I've started to feel comfortable and so I've stopped searching for a place to fit in.

We all want so much to fit in and be liked that we don't realize we're already where we should be. Feeling like you belong takes time. And as for being liked, well, what's not to like? When you feel like you're surrounded by an incredible group of individuals, maybe it's because you're not too shabby yourself.