New Hopes

Picked up my coffee today from the new coffee stand I found near our new house. It's cute and little and I would rather support them than Starbucks. And every 5th coffee you get is free. Free is good. One of the girls at the stand mentioned my scrubs today and asked what I did. I told her I was a nurse at a hospital not too far away. Her little eyes lit up. She explained to me that she was done with her pre req classes and was applying for nursing school. She excitedly continued that she has been volunteering in the hospital, that her dad was a nurse and he seemed to really like his job. Then she asked me how I liked my job... (Deep breath) Sometimes this is still a hard answer for me to give. I still hold on to the resentment of how I feel like how I put my whole life on hold to do school for the RN license, how I let myself go, how I ruined relationships and how I obsessed about getting a 4.0 when at the end of the day, it didn't mean much. Sure that 3.85 meant I got a different rope on my graduation gown and it is listed on my degree, but for what I sacrificed for it...I don't feel like it was worth it. The next thing I have resentment is being new and naive again about a new career and being eaten alive by nurses who had been doing the job as long as I had been alive. I had to grow thick skin to get through them and their criticism. I thought I already had the thick skin, the balls and the attitude to get through this new nursing roll, but I didn't have quite enough. And the truth is I probably didn't have enough of that to start nursing school. The first quarter was a complete fucking shock...and then my friends and I just went into survival mode to get through the next 5 quarters. The next thing that was hard on me was working nights. It was hard on me and hard for me to sleep, the money was not worth it. So here I am on evenings. I love my floor and my coworkers. I get more pleasant patients that I adore working with than not. But since injuring my back I am dying to get over to a baby nurse type atmosphere. I know it won't be easier, but it's my passion and lets be real a 9lb baby will not injury my back. I think the hardest thing will be dealing with mom and dad and learning to read the baby who can not always tell me what is wrong. You learn that though, just like I can tell when something is wrong with my pets, you get that feeling that something isn't right... So with all this resentment and feelings I hold for this adventure I've gone through... I reply to the excited young girl that I do enjoy my job, it is worth the school and that there are so many areas of nursing...if you don't like one spot you can move to so many  more! At the end of the day I sometimes regret giving up the EMT/ Firefighter role that I was so extremely proud of, but at this point I can't complain...And I made 3 really good friends out of the whole experience. I'll probably be friends with these girls for a very long time. It's nice to have them, they are the family I've chosen...And to the young new hope at the coffee shop I hope that she has a better survival through school than me and that at the end of the day, she too doesn't resent the journey or the school loans. And don't even get me started on school loans and the cost of those damn books...