A pep talk for myself
It's funny, people keep wanting to know, how do I feel. How do you feeeel?
I don't rightly know.
How are you supposed to feel after living a job for just long enough that it really became yours, and the employees were your people, and then you just stop, even if it's for a good reason?
I don't regret my decision. My gut tells me it was the right one and it hasn't led me wrong yet. But "conflicted" is a vast understatement. I wasn't really prepared for that. I didn't think about it, really. Once I make a decision, I stick with it and damn the consequences. If it's a lot to handle, I just put aside the emotions until I've carried through with the plan and I wait until everything's said and done before I pick them back up and deal with them.
Now I'm trying to sort out my mess, literally and figuratively. I was miserable but I was fulfilled. I was successful but I feel a little like I failed. I owned the responsibility and now I'm giving it up. I led my people and now I'm leaving them. I was looking forward to finishing but now I'm sad it's over. I struggled mightily but I made great friends.
It's hard to think I won't be seeing those people every day. Many of them are likely family and they struggled WITH me. That's the hardest part, is leaving them. The hospital itself has been my second home for the last four years, and generally speaking, I liked working there, so it's hard to leave that too. Not that I won't be returning, but it's not quite the same. It's also a bit scary not to have a job.
What I'm trying to focus on is what I'm gaining. I have a huge role transition to go through in a pretty short amount of time, and it will be fairly consuming. I'm excited to be able to dig into all the information I've been wanting to learn. It's funny, it's always seemed like the universe will provide the right things at the right time you need to learn them. It's silly but the new show on PBS, Call the Midwife, is actually pretty good and a decent reflection on how my new role feels sometimes. It's based on the memoirs of an actual midwife, so I suppose that's not surprising. The details might be different but it captures . . . I don't know, the "heart" of nursing as well as midwifery, since, just like myself, the characters are both nurses and midwives. You see how they can't help but get involved in the lives of these women and how it's an attitude of service - how they want to go above and beyond and advocate for their patients when they can't speak for themselves. And the sad social situations they see - 60 years later, they're not much different . . . except now there are laws to create boundaries on what nurses and midwives can do for these people.
Anyway. That's neither here nor there.
The night before every clinical, Husband has a habit of asking me if I'm excited for it, and I generally look at him like he's an idiot. Are you kidding? No, I'm freaking terrified and so nervous I could vomit, thanks for asking. I can't even wrap my head around the idea that some day (soon) I'll be the one calling the shots, and half my time there is spent feeling like such an idiot that I can't even conceive of feeling excited about it. But I've done this kind of thing before. Nursing school was the same way - from layperson to nurse in one year - and I'll do it again now. I'm not actually concerned that I might not make it to the end, though I keep a healthy respect for the idea that I could always fail. It just feels like such a yawning chasm from point A to point B at the moment. So I'll put my blinders on and I won't look down and I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
The one perspective I need to maintain is that I'm ridiculously lucky to know what I love to do and be so very close to living it. So I'll take full advantage of the opportunity and I will endeavor to enjoy the shit out of my new-found free time. It'd be insulting to all of humanity to waste it. I'm going to go see what I can do with a heart full of love and gratitude.
I don't rightly know.
How are you supposed to feel after living a job for just long enough that it really became yours, and the employees were your people, and then you just stop, even if it's for a good reason?
I don't regret my decision. My gut tells me it was the right one and it hasn't led me wrong yet. But "conflicted" is a vast understatement. I wasn't really prepared for that. I didn't think about it, really. Once I make a decision, I stick with it and damn the consequences. If it's a lot to handle, I just put aside the emotions until I've carried through with the plan and I wait until everything's said and done before I pick them back up and deal with them.
Now I'm trying to sort out my mess, literally and figuratively. I was miserable but I was fulfilled. I was successful but I feel a little like I failed. I owned the responsibility and now I'm giving it up. I led my people and now I'm leaving them. I was looking forward to finishing but now I'm sad it's over. I struggled mightily but I made great friends.
It's hard to think I won't be seeing those people every day. Many of them are likely family and they struggled WITH me. That's the hardest part, is leaving them. The hospital itself has been my second home for the last four years, and generally speaking, I liked working there, so it's hard to leave that too. Not that I won't be returning, but it's not quite the same. It's also a bit scary not to have a job.
What I'm trying to focus on is what I'm gaining. I have a huge role transition to go through in a pretty short amount of time, and it will be fairly consuming. I'm excited to be able to dig into all the information I've been wanting to learn. It's funny, it's always seemed like the universe will provide the right things at the right time you need to learn them. It's silly but the new show on PBS, Call the Midwife, is actually pretty good and a decent reflection on how my new role feels sometimes. It's based on the memoirs of an actual midwife, so I suppose that's not surprising. The details might be different but it captures . . . I don't know, the "heart" of nursing as well as midwifery, since, just like myself, the characters are both nurses and midwives. You see how they can't help but get involved in the lives of these women and how it's an attitude of service - how they want to go above and beyond and advocate for their patients when they can't speak for themselves. And the sad social situations they see - 60 years later, they're not much different . . . except now there are laws to create boundaries on what nurses and midwives can do for these people.
Anyway. That's neither here nor there.
The night before every clinical, Husband has a habit of asking me if I'm excited for it, and I generally look at him like he's an idiot. Are you kidding? No, I'm freaking terrified and so nervous I could vomit, thanks for asking. I can't even wrap my head around the idea that some day (soon) I'll be the one calling the shots, and half my time there is spent feeling like such an idiot that I can't even conceive of feeling excited about it. But I've done this kind of thing before. Nursing school was the same way - from layperson to nurse in one year - and I'll do it again now. I'm not actually concerned that I might not make it to the end, though I keep a healthy respect for the idea that I could always fail. It just feels like such a yawning chasm from point A to point B at the moment. So I'll put my blinders on and I won't look down and I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
The one perspective I need to maintain is that I'm ridiculously lucky to know what I love to do and be so very close to living it. So I'll take full advantage of the opportunity and I will endeavor to enjoy the shit out of my new-found free time. It'd be insulting to all of humanity to waste it. I'm going to go see what I can do with a heart full of love and gratitude.