Saturday, May 10, 2014

Michele OBrien, RN

This is nurses week. It's pretty amazing we get a whole week. Probably because we're pretty amazing.

We are the workhorses of healthcare. We're the first ones in, the last ones out. We are the eyes and ears and hands and hearts of our facilities.

True connections, life-long bonds and memories are created under our care. Our patients and our patient's families will remember us forever.

Our job is a privilege. Not many people see and do the things we handle on a day to day basis. We have a window into life and death. Our job is not to be trifled with.

Then why am I so unhappy this year? Why am I not feeling so proud and accomplished?

Maybe this is my year to feel the weight and exhaustion of the job. Yes, it's *only* a three day work week. I know, I know, I know.

I'm lonely. That's really at the crux of things.

I changed jobs at the beginning of the year for all the right reasons but the net result has been loneliness.

Hot husband is traveling. A lot. Add that to the deep , intense, core driven affection I have for my friends I left behind at my previous job that is burning a tremendous hole in my heart...

This is not a job you can go to and do well at if you HAVE NO BACK UP. No love in your scrub pocket. No knowledge from those around you of who you are, what you can do, the breadth of your talent.

I'm lonely.

I'm a lonely nurse.

I'm a lonely mama.

I'm what a you'd call "sniffing my own drawers" right about now. (A phrase borrowed from the mother of a woman I used to be very close to).

I can't get out of my own way.

I am not so independent.

I'm not that tough.

The other day at my new job I replied to a co-worker who said that my glasses were "fabulous" and that I must be a real "trend-setter", that she had no idea of the level and scope of my awesome.

I grossly underestimated the social aspect of changing jobs. I didn't realize how much going to work was as much about doing my job as it was about being with like minded women and laughing and talking and crying and sharing things that have nothing to do with said job. Connections and bonds that in turn, make the job possible, doable.

This thing that is happening to me is forcing some realities to the surface. Stuff about my confidence and self-worth and my fragile little ego.

So. The fact is that I am a nurse and this is my week and before it's over, I will find a really good reason to celebrate. I have about 18 hours to accomplish that…. Ready! Set! GO!