I have been such a blogging slacker...I apologize. Life. It's been crazy this past year and a half. I'm working quite a bit, but loving being a nurse. I absolutely love my patients and most of my coworkers. I love that I've learned so much since starting and have grown into a new, more independent person. In that growth though, I've become burnt out quite a bit. I'm seeing all the things wrong with the hospital I work in and the healthcare field in general. I remember writing my essay to get into grad school and my reasoning for wanting to seek my Master's degree. I couldn't believe they let me in on the first try, or that I'd even love it as much as I do now. I must have a sickness. No one should love school this much. Even procrastinating on my huge papers is fun these days. It always turns out well in the end. But as I continue in school and learn new things, I start to be ever more thankful that I had the ambition to continue to begin with. Every time I go to work I get frustrated with the inability to do what I really want to for my patients, and what they truly deserve, do to time constraints or rules. It seems there's always something new I have to do or another hoop to jump through. Each day I think, this is why I went back to school. I don't just want to get paid more, though that wouldn't hurt, I want to be able to make some change in this world. I want to be able to help patients meet their needs early, to prevent what might happen. I want to educate, rehabilitate, and ultimately change what this healthcare system has turned into. I don't think it's right to count people as a room number or another dollar. It hurts my heart to even type that. Yet, that's what it's turned into. Somehow I've built myself a nice little soap box. This past year and a half has changed me. Sometimes I feel like I'm a little rougher around the edges, but at the same time I'm also more easily broken by connections to my patients. It's hard to take care of a person for twelve hours and get to know who they really are, only to learn that something horrible has happened to them and their lives have changed. Yes, they might ultimately change for the better. And yes, I do think everything happens for a reason, but when you're stretched to the max, it's hard to leave work at work and not take it home in your heart.
Other parts of my life have changed as well. Somehow my relationship has repeated a once traveled journey and though I'm stronger now, it doesn't make it a whole lot easier. I had to make an executive adult decision to do what's best for me and for him. Deja vu from four years ago. With a lot on your plate, it's quite difficult to choose what to lose when you are struggling to carry it all. Me, being me, would rather stick it out and be struggle with it rather than giving up. However, when you truly care about someone, you can't make them choose. I trust in God and his hand in my life. All will be well. I smile every day knowing that I am but one person in a bigger, grander scheme of amazingness. I may not see what is yet to come, but I know that once that veil is pulled from my eyes, I will see the beauty in the breaking.

And counting. That is all I have left of this career I have as a nursing student. Looking back it seemed like it went so quickly, but as it was happening, it took forever. All that time, those late nights writing papers that seemed thicker than my books, study dates on the weekends, tears of frustration, all of it...leading to one day. December 11, 2008. The beginning of the rest of my life. Sounds dramatic, I know. If only you knew what it took to get there. There are no words to describe what I have learned along the way. It's not even about sutures, heart failure, pneumothorax, diabetes, delivering babies, psychoses, or all that other nursing stuff you learn. It is about confidence, independence, fellowship, teamwork, compassion, and the simple things like holding a hand. You have no idea the things you will learn when you start, you just know it will be an adventure. It's always about the adventure. The friends I have made along the way are of a different kind. You make strong bonds with the people you work through hard times with. We have all survived, together. It's been intense. Had I known all I would go through, I would never have it any other way. It's built my character and made me who I am. I know it's sentimental of me, but I'm thankful for all of it.

Now that I'm here, with the light at the end of the tunnel visible, it scares me just a little. I wonder what the future holds. It has always been about the next step. The next chapter in my scholastic book. I will continue for my masters, but that's besides the point. This is the edge of the cliff for me. Jump and fly or jump and fall. A scary place, to be a college graduate. Right now I stand with one foot in the realm of childhood and one in the real world. I will soon be a working adult, not a college student. I know nothing else. I feel real old. I always believed that by this point I'd be thinking about marriage and starting a family. Seemed like the logical next step. I'm not there. I'd like to be, but I'm not yet. Right now I live life for me. I've always been trying to get to this point, survive the next year and all it would bring, so now what? Where's the life manual that says...ok, next step is this...? I pave my own path and I seek out adventures, so I know I can handle this. Bring on the adventure. I'm jumping off the cliff and I'm going to fly. It's an exciting thought to think that the world is at my fingertips and now that I'm here, I alone can choose what to do with it. My goals have been narrowed my entire life, but now are wide open. I could do anything, go anywhere, be whatever I want to be. Yes, I've reached that proverbial platform of adulthood. I will taking my nursing pin and diploma and run with it. Off the cliff I go. Stories of hardships and triumphs in my backpack. If I can live through nursing school, I can do anything.

I'm off to make a difference...9 weeks away.