SEPTEMBER 16 COHORT

MONDAY MUSINGS - 2016 - My pivotal year, a decade on.

There was a lot on social media in January of people looking back at 2016. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, as reflecting back on 2016 ten years later, it really was a big year for me.

2016 was a year filled with closure, change and transition. You could say, I somehow lost myself and found myself all in that same year.

A decade later in 2026 – this year my beloved bakery will have been closed longer than it was open, and for some reason that makes you reflect on the loss even more.

2016 was the year bake-a-boo closed.

A little piece of my heart closed with it, and life started to look very different. Much of that year was spent wondering - who would I be without being ‘Zoe bake-a-boo’? I wonder if I knew all I have experienced in the decade that has followed, whether I would still feel as apprehensive as I did.

May 2016, we closed the doors with a nautical themed party as we acknowledged that this ship was now going to sail. I handed back the keys in June and went on a writing retreat which has a profound impact on me, and allowed me to connect with something deeper within myself and feel braver about my next steps.

In September 2016 I started my nursing degree. Many thought I was mad for doing this, but many others said they can’t believe I hadn’t considered it sooner.

Having spent the last decade of my life tied to a building, navigating my way through life as a ‘business woman’ – I had applied to 4 universities via UCAS. A very different process to when I last applied for university at age 17/18, with help and support from my head of year, as well as going down the same route as my peers who were mostly all making similar applications.

At 34 this application was very different, my peers now were married and raising children, finding ways to make their own careers more manageable around family life, or aiming for higher profile positions as they have become older and wiser in their professions. I was very alone, and also knew I would likely be one of the oldest in my class (it turned out I wasn’t though!).

I didn’t feel the same pressure as I had as a teenager – where you feel your life depends on where you end up, and how well you do at university, when actually at 17 how can you really know what or who you want to be? I realised the immense pressure of these decisions when adult life is really just beginning. I also recognised how different my experience would have been if I had chosen a nursing degree at 18.

“How will you go from being the boss, to being right at the bottom of the ladder? Because that’s what you will be as a student nurse”

This was one of my university interview questions.

I think I was honest in my response, that being ‘the boss’ wasn’t the be all and end all for me. In fact I had left my business behind feeling sick of being the one holding it all together, and being the ‘mother’ that I never got to be in my personal life, which basically just meant I had to solve all the problems and allow the buck to stop with me. As a single woman, also not in any kind of business ‘partnership’ - I didn’t even have the person to rant to, or offload when I got home. Whilst I knew in my heart I’d be a dedicated nurse, I was actually looking forward to someone else being in charge.

Strangely the office politics, the break room gossip and the comradery that nursing provides, is something I deeply craved. Having spent the last decade tied to a building that I had total control over, where I worked more hours than anyone else, and spent the large majority of my days in a basement kitchen with only a tiny window. Yes I had staff, but I missed colleagues, and Christmas parties and meetings and annual leave! These are privileges I was never entitled to.

My current boss will vouch for the fact that I’m the worst person for taking annual leave. To me, it still doesn’t feel quite like ‘the norm’ for me, it’s a privilege, and 10 years on I’m still not quite there yet with the concept that my employer is willing to pay me to go on holiday or just take a day to myself.

This was just unheard of in my previous life.

So when my interviewer asked me that question in 2016, if I could have shown him then what my future would look like, I genuinely think he will be proud.

I went into nursing with no arrogance, I knew I was oblivious and absolutely out of my depth! But I had the passion and drive I had had to indoctrinate in order to successfully run my business. I didn’t chose the easy option. I was entering an entirely different experience, and I had no idea if I had the strength courage or wisdom to really see it through.

I think what 2016 offered me was the chance to take a risk, but also for the first time in my life, I didn’t put any pressure on myself. I knew I was potentially out of my depth. I knew that in week one someone might vomit on my shoe and in true princess style, I may come to the immediate conclusion that I was not made to be a nurse and this profession was most definitely not for me.

In contrast what 2016 offered me actually, was empowerment and choice and a freedom that I had never really known before. If I get through this nursing degree and nursing is something I want to pursue, I know I can work in multiple places all over the world, and the chances are, I will likely always have a job, even if it’s not the perfect job, I will be able to seek employment.

10 years ago, I made the hardest decision of my life, I faced my future with bravery and didn’t quite know if I could trust myself or if I would succeed. But I went for it regardless.

So what 2016 actually gave me was the confidence to start over, to pursue something that’s scary and unknown. To follow a dream, even if it’s just a niggle. To not fear things ending, to recognise that every ending is also a beginning. To dive into the unconventional, to follow your calling, and to be fearless until the universe gives you a reason to become fearful.

You can take the plunge, take the risk, explore the unknown.

You can trust the process, go with the flow, and find a version of you that you didn’t know existed.

You can do hard things, succeed amongst the unknown, and it never really has to feel like it’s ‘too late’ - you really can turn that on it’s head.

Whilst I finished my degree in 2019, and now in 2026 I can look back proudly on my somewhat short, but nevertheless intense nursing career – 2016 was the pivotal point. The brave leap, the deep end, the year where I could have been faced with the huge realisation that I’d made a huge mistake.

In contrast - the last 4 months of 2016 showed me that I had made the right decision, that I could do this, that I wasn’t as crazy as some has said I was for making this 2016 choice.

2016 marked some level of re-birth for me.

A chance, an opportunity, a freedom, a more meaningful life.

Ultimately the biggest gift of 2016 was the belief that I really can do anything, if I really want to and I really believe in myself. To find transferrable skills that can take you from being a baker and business woman, to being a nurse. To open your horizons. To swap cookies for commodes, and icing for intensive care. How do you even navigate that?

But 10 years on - I sit here, writing this as a nurse from the September 16 cohort at Buckinghamshire New University who achieved a first class honours, and went on to have a successful nursing career in the decade that has followed. As a clinical nurse specialist now, my background continues to serve me in a highly contrasting setting.

And I will never be the disengaged nurse at the nursing station, dreaming of their bakery dreams and all they think they can achieve as the ‘business woman’ they dream of being. Because I have been her, I have seen her and lived her. She was brave, she believed, and she achieved. But ‘nursing me’ is braver, more determined, strives to be better and kinder and make more of a difference. ‘Nursing me’ sees the fragility of life and doesn’t sweat the small stuff, and the stressful and even life and death moments that I encounter now, strangely don’t make me feel the stress and anxiety that 4pm on a Saturday afternoon in my busy tea room ever gave me.

I went from being the boss, to the bottom of the ladder, just like my interviewer told me. And then I climbed the ladder, but I did so with caution, patience, and grace and determination and I thank 2016 me for allowing me to take that risk, make the promises I did to myself, and for persevering.

I have grown, and faced hardships and challenges. I will always have self doubt as a nurse, but I will always give it my all.

And I will eventually get to a point where I get better at taking my annual leave.