“I’m not superwoman. No, Definitely not.”Julie White, mother of four, wife, student and nurse, may not think she’s a superwoman, but it does take a special person to juggle all those tasks and remain composed.

“I used to think ,’I’m going to be the best nurse, I’m going to know all the medicines. I’m going to be the best mom, and I’m going to be the best wife,'” she said. “Well, something has to go. You can’t be the best.”

White, born in Virginia and raised in Maryland, relocated to Tennessee with her husband after living in several different areas.

“We said, ‘If we can move anywhere in the United States, lets move back to Tenn.,'” White said.

Now living in Erwin, White is attending ETSU for the second time. She had attended college right after high school but dropped out in her last year.

“I always knew that I would go back to school eventually,” she said.

White was married soon after she quit college and moved to Tennessee for the first time. She decided to begin classes at ETSU when her oldest child was a baby, but felt that she was missing out on an important time in his life.

“I missed him learning how to walk and learning how to talk,” she said. “I just felt like I wasn’t being a good mother.”

White promised herself that she would go back to school when her son was older but she and her husband relocated and had three more children, putting her desire to return to the classroom on the back burner.

Now White works at the Medical Center Home Health in Johnson City while she attends school. She wasn’t sure about home health at first but with the encouragement of a friend, White has found a place within that aspect of nursing.

“I’m really bad with directions, but it’s worked out OK,” she said. “I’m glad I did it.”

Right now, White is planning to graduate in December and hopes to do her clinicals in a pediatric and obstetrics office.

“If I don’t want to do home health the rest of my life, those are the two things I think I might like to do,” she said.

White knows that she can’t do it all. She also knows that, despite her own desire to be the best, she has to let some things go and do only what she can do.

“A lot of the times we’ll go out to eat because I’m too busy to fix something. I never thought I’d be doing that, but you learn that you have to be flexible and negotiate things,” she said.

Regardless of her busy schedule, White knows she is on the right path.

“I know that I need to be doing this. I know I need to be in nursing school,” she said. “It’s something that I feel like God has laid on my heart. When you’re doing what you know God wants you to do, you have a peace.”

White hasn’t always been confident that she would finish school. When her mother passed away a year and a half ago, White almost gave up. Luckily, through the encouragement of her instructors and their willingness to help, she finished the semester and is well on her way to doing something that she knows her mother would want her to do.

“I thought, ‘Who cares?’ There were several teachers who said ‘Your mom would want you to finish. You need to come back and finish.’ So I did, and I’m glad I did,” White said. “If it wasn’t for those teachers … I just didn’t have enough inside of me to finish. There were teachers who came in during Christmas break to let me take tests, and they didn’t have to do that.”

White attributes her drive to succeed to her mother who had to deal with a lot of hardships when White was a child. She also knows that she wouldn’t be where she is today without God.

“I think God directs your steps,” she said. “I couldn’t do it without the Lord. No way.”

White said that she gets a lot of help from her husband even though he is also in school. “Chuck helps a lot,” she said. “There are a lot of times when he’ll cook and help clean.”

For White, free time and time for herself is scarce. She said that she appreciates the time spent driving to see her patients.

“I really don’t have a whole lot for me right now,” White said. “But I know it’s going to come. There’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

White feels like she’s a good mom, and her hope for her children is that they will see Jesus in her and grow in their walk as Christians. She knows she is where God wants her to be and desires to always be the best she can be.

“I’m always telling my husband and the kids that God didn’t put us here just to be entertained, just to watch TV or read books or to go to track meets. We weren’t put here to be entertained,” White said. “We have a purpose … I feel like my purpose is to be a nurse, to help people.

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