A New Decade?

My friends and I were talking recently about the beginning of a new decade.  It seems so weird that ten more years have passed in our lives, and we had a long discussion about what we had and had not accomplished, what we had been through, and what the next decade would bring.  It is weird, because when we were all little we had this imaginary timeline in which we thought life events would happen, and now here we all are and we are all in different stages and it is funny to look back and think about how we had it all planned out and how life just does not work that way.  The whole thing got me started thinking about what my last decade really had included, and I wanted to get it all down on paper (or whatever you want to call this - out on screen?). 

On new years eve ten years ago I was eighteen years old.  I was at a girl's house with my new boyfriend.  It was a house party, although I was sober.  We got pulled over on the way home with way too many people in the car, and one guy in the trunk.  Somehow the officer let us go.  We laughed and laughed because the guy in the trunk kept banging on the seats in front of him and calling our cell phones to ask what was going on.  That was how I started my decade, laughing with my friends and my new love, not a care in the world. 

At eighteen, I was a senior.  That was the year I started dating my first real love.  It was the total puppy love kind, complete with long handwritten notes in class and plastic roses left underneath the windshield wipers on my car.  We spent hours in my van, just talking for hours about the future and college and our "endless" love.  That year he went with me to my senior prom.  I won "prom princess" that year, and got to dance in a crown.  We drove through town naked.  We spray painted a bridge with our names.  I got drunk for the first time, and puked from drinking for the first time.  I got nominated the captain of my ice hockey team, and we won state that year.  I made the big decision to leave home (and said boyfriend) and go away to college. 

At nineteen, I lived far away for college.  I went away knowing nobody, and made friends completely unlike my friends at home.  My first boyfriend and I stayed together, and I lost my virginity to him that year.  The town I lived in was tiny, and we had many adventures out of boredom.  I made a dress out of towels to wear to an "anything but clothes" party.  I took - and hated - Calculus.  We found a lost dog and snuck it into the dorm for the weekend to live with us until we found its owners (which we did).  I gained the freshman 10.  I dyed my hair obnoxiously red and dark, and it stained my shower maroon.  I got my hair cut at Wal-Mart.  I met a kid who looked like Jesus, and that is what we called him.  He even dressed up like Him for Halloween.  He lived an amazing life - moved to France with no money or plan and lived all over for two years and came home with terrific stories of adventure and perseverence.  I cried my heart out the day I found out that he had dropped dead from a heart condition.  People like that teach the rest of us to live life to the fullest. 

At twenty I had switched schools to live in Wisconsin with two of my best friends (P and E).  We rented our very first house, an awful stucco thing next door to some creepy drugged out old men who later robbeed us.  The house smelled like weed and Ramen noodles.  I got into nursing school.  We spent our nights talking into all hours of the morning, or partying with our boyfriends.  I arranged a group of nursing girls to come over to my house and we created our own "sorority" mocking our real nursing sororities.  We made T-Shirts and did pub crawls.  I skipped a lot of class.  I went to class in pajamas.  And yet I managed to get A's, which pissed off the Type A nerdy girls with all of the different colored highlighters that never missed a day.  I loved it.  P, E and I went to Acapulco for spring break with our boyfriends.  We drank, we danced, we got wicked tans.  I had sex on the beach, even though we were told it was illegal.  The girls and I were videotaped laughing on the beach, and it made Girls Gone Wild.  The other two were mortified, but I thought it was hilarious.  We did not make the videos, but they zoomed in on my boobs and made it all lewd - my mom made me show my grandma.  The war broke out while we were there, and they announced that the U.S had dropped bombs over a louspeaker.  I was drunk, and bawled.  We almost didn't get back into the United States because no planes were allowed in.  It was an eventful year. 

The summer before I turned 21, P was diagnosed with liver cancer.  She was my best friend.  She had been feeling crappy for months and the doctors thought it was from a car accident.  It wasn't.  E and I spent the next nineteen months watching our beloved friend endure hell.  Three surgeries, chemotherapy, the works.  Weeks of driving back and forth to the mayo clinic, camping out in waiting rooms and alternating between being stoic and bawling our eyes out.  E and I watched her shrink away.  21 came and went with a drunken night - I puked on main street in front of a cop who laughed when my friends told him it was my birthday.  A group of us girls including P went to california together.  We danced on the beach, saw the Hollywood sign, made some more memories.  It was her last hurrah with the girls.  During this time my boyfriend cheated on me and we broke up, and I began dating a guy I had known for years.  I racked up the second notch on my belt and kept my mind off losing two of the loves of my life.  I also went to Mazatlan with two of my nursing girls.  We danced at a foam party, rode horses by the ocean, and went sea-kyaking to an island and I thought I was going to crash and drown.  P died on valentine's day the next year, and this year will mark 5 years.  We still miss her.

After P's death my boyfriend and I got back together.  I kissed him while with my interim boyfriend, and broke up with the poor guy the next day.  I still regret hurting him, but I had to give my first love a second chance.  I got my only B in nursing school during that time.  That summer I interned at the Mayo Clinic, and was placed on the same floor that P had been on.  I met some of her nurses.  The program started on her birthday.  I still believe that she helped me start my career.  That August I got into a fight with my boyfriend and slow danced with my now fiance.  We danced to "You Look Wonderful Tonight".  The Earth Moved.  I began my senior year of nursing school and turned 23, and kept running into my fiance, who kept urging me to dump my boyfriend and to date him.  I did not listen.  I kept skipping school to play, and was nominated for a leadership award.  I went to Florida with 16 women and 1 man for Spring break that year, and my boyfriend cheated the second (and last) time.  I found out over the phone in Florida.  I partied and went on dates with a guy i met down there.  Not smart but an effective way to forget the issue at hand.  When I got home I ran into him, and it ended with me crashing my car into a parked car.  After drinking.  I burnt my hand on the airbag.  Not my smartest moment in life, but definitely eye opening.  My now-fiance came to the rescue. 

My fiance and I started dating just before i graduated college.  I graduated sum cum laude and he came to my graduation.  I spent a lazy summer home with him, and moved to Rochester, MN to start my first job at Mayo.  I lived with a college friend and fellow nursing student down there, in a beautiful townhouse.  It was so fun to decorate and have money to spend.  I started saving for a home of my own.  My first job was hard but I loved it.  The floor was clean and nice, and the people were wonderful.  Whenever I took care of a cancer patient I thought of P.  C and I went to Lake Tahoe that year.  It was my first big vacation alone with a guy, and it was breathtaking in the mountains.  We took the tram up the mountain and gasped for air.  We gambled.  We took morning walks in the crisp air to get breakfast together.  We pretended to be rich people and took a tour of these fancy condos just to see the inside.  We took a boat tour on the water and watched a couple get married.  It was wonderful. 

I moved the next year, and started work closer to home.  I started swapping my time between my parent's house and C's.  All of my stuff lived in storage.  We fought and we laughed and we loved.  I learned a lot about living with him that way.  I began my new job and started the house hunt.  My new job was harder, dirtier, but just as good.  I loved the people and the new work was interesting.  The house hunt was exhausting. 

The next year he proposed.  I was clueless.  It was on a beach at three in the morning.  I was wearing my friend's little black dress and C's big seatshirt.  I was barefoot.  He said a speech and we danced in the sand till early morning.  I cried.  That same year I began training for yet another job switch.  Every year it gets more intense and every year I love it more.  Wedding planning is in full swing.  We went to Vegas on a whim and I won a thousand dollars playing slots.  We took a picture by the Bellagio fountain and ate 50 dollar ice cream, and came home exhausted.  No more Vegas. 

I finally bought a house this year.   It is beautiful and I love it.  I wake up in the morning with the sun streaming in to my blue bedroom and I just lay and admire the sound.  The whir of my fan, the quiet snoring of C beside me, and the rustling of my puppies downstairs.  Life is amazing. 

The last ten years have been insane.  I have graduated high school, graduated college, and worked three different nursing jobs.  I have lived in three different states.  I have dated three different guys.  I have cheated and been cheated.  I have taken vacations with a boyfriend, couples and many women.  I have been very drunk and not so very drunk.  I have crashed a few cars.  I have had sex on a beach, on a train, the hood of a car, on rollerblades at a driving range, in a bar.  I have ridden horses in the ocean and up a mountain, skated on a frozen river, spoken at my college graduation, done lots of CPR, bought my own house, and said yes to the love of my life.  I have watched my friend die, seen another give birth, and have stood up in quite a few weddings.  I have an amazing family, close friends and a man I love.  The last decade has been a mix of adventure and mundane, of highs and lows, and I would not trade a second of it.  This is life, I guess, in all of its glory.  I just hope that the next ten are equally interesting. 

Big Brother is Watching

This blog has kind of veered off course as of late due to increased "vigilance" at work due to the economy money crunch.  And by vigilance I mean the higher-ups have been looking for reasons to fire people because firing people apparently saves money.  Therefore, the idea of writing about work has been a little scary, and since I usually wrote about work while on break AT work... well lets just say it has not been a good idea to do so.  So here I am, on my couch, trying to write about work without actually writing anything incriminating (thus keeping this very annonymous). 

Speaking of annonymous, there is a work survery sitting in my inbox right now that I am supposed to be doing - an employee "engagement" survey.  It is supposedly an annonymous way to voice our thoughts and opinions about work to Big Brother without consequence.  To this I say BULLSHIT.  Sure, we don't have to put our names on said survey, but the questions ask about the shift you work, how many patients you have, etc, and we have to sign in using our employee numbers to even take the survey!  Not for one second do I think that this is annonymous. 

Another example is this damn trial thingy we are doing at work.  I fill out this pretest about some of the facts that I am supposed to know about my job, get a pre-score, then I take their little online coursework and take a posttest to see if my score improves.  We are not required to take it, just Highly Encouraged to take it.  They claim that it is annonymous and that our coursework and scores only go toward a national average and are not looked at by our coworkers.  Well I, being the terrific employee that I am, only took half of it.  I took the pretest, and started the coursework, but then discovered the length and sheer awfulness (yup, thats a word) of the work and gave up.  Well now I get am email from our education people this week saying that it was just wonderful that i had started the trial but according to their records I was only half done and would I please finish the rest.  Well how in God's name, if this is supposed to be annonymous and scoreless, did they not only find out that i had in fact started the test, but also that I had only half-finished it!?!  Bullshit bullshit bullshit.  That is the last of that crap that I take, that is for sure.  As for my "engagement survey?"  Consider me disengaged.

On the Road Again

I love my commute. Yes, I know that this statement alone is insane, but I really do. Maybe it is just me, but something about driving into a night shift is somehwhat of a religious experience.

It is dark when I leave my driveway and pull out onto my quiet street. There are lights still on in some of the windows - people puttering about their homes, watching TV or getting little ones off to bed. Some houses are already dark, their inhabitants settled into the warm spot in the bed, drifting on the edge of sleep.

I pull out and begin my nightly exodus. Sometimes I put the radio on, and what I play depends on my mood. Sometimes it is my Ipod, quietly humming along to music that I know well, or belting out fast girly pop like Britney Spears. Other nights I switch the radio onto the Christian station, where the songs are more unfamiliar to me but calming. But most nights I spend the darkness in silence.

I leave the little town and head to the city. There are only a few cars on the highway - one of the perks at driving in this hour. The darkness deepens as I drive over the big bridge, the blackness of the water eating up the light and sound.

I drive for a while and talk to God. I feel like one of His soldiers when I come in for a night shift, sneaking in while the world sleeps to do my work in His name and sneaking home once my night is done. I come over the hill and the city stretches out below me - buildings and cars all lit up like the emerald city, like Heaven. I drive in and wind down into the maze of on-ramps, first one way and then the other, fluid motion with other cars like we are on tracks in the night.

I drive up on the big cathedral and once again God and I have a conversation. I don't know why I talk to Him here, but I do it every shift that I work. I am not even Catholic. Something about the cathedral, magnificent and solid and larger than life makes me reverent. I talk to God, I tell him how I am feeling, how I think the night will be, how I want the night to be. I ask him for a good night, for my patient's health, for the health of my fellow nurses. I ask Him every time. And when the daylight comes and it is all over, I thank Him for the shift, His presence, the night. In the daylight the city goes back to being a city, the highway fills with busy commuters, the little town bustles with the activity that morning brings, and my moments of sacred silence are gone and I go home to sleep.

I just discovered something! I can write these posts at work! Oh, I am gonna be a super-blogger now! I cannot believe that in all of the censoring my lovely employer does of our computer use, that this is allowed! Every time I try to see a video on You Tube, see someone else's blog, or even shop for fricking swimsuits on victoriassecret.com, they get blocked! Big Brother is apparently not always watching! Yay! So people, you are going to get majorly sick of me. Tonight is a fairly calm night, considering my floor's general disposition, except for one fact - 3 of my four patients tonight are loony. One is in alcohol withdrawal, crawling his scrawny ass in and out of bed left and right. And he sleeps in bed sideways! Squirrelly. Do not drink bottles and bottles of booze, people. And my father will laugh when he reads this because I drink my fair share (full discolsure - I am a young person in the MidWest, it is practically a rite of passage) but I recall hearing stories about his loopy bum back in the day so take that. My loopy patient number two has a hitory of psychoses, which basically is super-doctor speak for "Mumbles Incoherently At All Times." And lucky number three has got himself a urinary tract infection which means he has spent his night talking about how a helicopter is going to fall through his window and kill him, or the most recent - "what are all of those gamblers doing out there? I think they are up to some kind of college prank." Did I mention that he too has been trying to crawl out of bed? Ahhhhh, night shift nursing.

I love you

I have found real love. How do I know, you ask? Because I have met my match. That sounds silly, because I we do not match whatsoever. I am in love with a man that is my yang to my yin, or yin to my yang (I am probably pissing someone off for getting that wrong, to them - whatever). I am loud and animated, he is moody and has a tendedncy to be sullen. I am cerebral and nerdy, he is hands-on and very black and white with his thinking. He can infuriate me from across a room, and yet... somehow I have this unending urge to hold him. He exudes this insecurity that I lack, some vulnerability that I absolutley yearn to take in. He, and his world, mystify me. I love to wake up in the night and feel his presence next to me, a subtle warmth and dip in the mattress just far enough away that I am not touching him yet he is there. I turn over and squint my eyes as the light sneaks in through the sides of the blinds, falling over his sleeping shoulders. They are broad and smooth, rising and falling in a rhythmic motion that reminds me that I am exactly where I want to be.

Sleep???

Is it just me, or is nursing as a profession lacking sleep? I feel that as a whole, nurses all need a little shut eye. Here we are, staring into the false light of the computers, trying to care for someone's mom/dad/kid/grandparent while half asleep. Maybe it is just me, but with all of the crazy hours we work, and the physical and emotional demands of the job - I sometimes require more than a little (full disclosure - a lot) of Diet Pepsi to get by! It is not as if we are working swing shifts in a factory, where all you might mess up is somebody's window/screw/crayon whatever-you-make - we are dealing with human beings here! Although, being tired at work is not gonna cost me a finger, which it may in the factory, but still. I work night shifts. I love night shifts - I love the calm of the night, driving in while the rest of the world is driving out. I love the dimmed hospital lights, the hum of the machines, the lack of personel. And the night nurses. Ahhh, I feel that we are a breed of our own. Night nurses all have a little something crazy, or maybe we are all so screwed up in the head as to what time it is that we seem that way - whatever it is, I like it. But, no matter how much I like the shift, that hung-over-somebody-inject-some-life-into-me feeling the afternoon after my last shift when I am desperately trying to get back to "normal people time" is like a kick in the pants. On that note, I am losing sleep as you read this, so off I go to bed. :) How about you? Are you lacking sleep on your day job? Or are you a night owl like me?

Letting Go

This is not a happy post, but hopefully a thoughtful one. The dog that my family has had for 13 years had to be put down today. I have never witnessed such a thing before, and did not know what to expect. I imagined a white room, metal table, and a doctor in a white coat pushing a needle into my beloved pet in a sterile goodbye. In short, I did not think it was going to be a good thing. My dog had cancer. He was old and rickety, and while he still had a little of that puppy spunk left in his eyes, you could tell that his happy carefree days were a now thing of memory. He reminded me of a frail little old man, stubborn and independent but with just a hint of sorrow in his eyes. It was time to go. My father and I brought him to the vet, and we were ushered into a dimly lit room with a bench and stone floor. A beautiful silver clock hung on the wall, a momento from a loving family to honor their lost pet. "Mood lighting," I thought. The room looked the the dim rooms at the eye doctor, not the creepy white room I had imagined. The doctor came in and expalined the process, and placed an IV in both front legs. She brought out a blanket, and we got to sit with him and love on him while she injected the medicine to make him sleep. The whole thing was so fast - one second she injected it, and the next he was calmly drifting from this world. I was surprised to see the look leave his eyes, his soul gone, body at peace. It was just like a dying person. He lay still, breath quieted, finally at rest. It was hard to watch, but probably the best way to go that we could have asked for him. We left him there, in the tiny dimly lit room, in the care of the professionals. And in good style, he will be returned to us in ashes, and we will remember him in the proudest way we could think of - in fireworks over the hill behind our house. He was a wonderful animal, companion, friend. He deserved to go this way and will be remembered joyfully for the rest of our lives.