Oh, the true beauty of life

If you are close to me in any number of ways, you know I don’t always like my job.

Present and future managers, and any other personnel who will impact my career field of choice, please continue to read, for you must get the whole story.

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Working in any establishment, being apart of anything bigger than yourself, always comes with some kind of stress.

Owning your own business comes with a lot of personal stress; this ‘bigger than yourself’ you have created lies like a burden on your back, you are responsible for this ‘bigger.’

Devoting your soul to a wine store while continuously running after your goal of increasing your knowledge on something you are so passionate about comes with much personal stress; there are so many discouraging moments, and sometimes, just trying to maintain a state of optimism can be overwhelming.

Graduating a year early? You’ve brought it on yourself.  Woah now, stop right there.

School can be a pretty stressful life event, especially if you are anything like her; constant string of only perfection being good enough can only increase the personally-inflicted cloud of worry.

Having your life essentially owned by the government is surely interesting to say the least, not that I can speak from first person experience.  Having your schedule made for you, allowing other people to essentially run your life is a type of overwhelming of which I am not increasingly fond. Knowingly walking head-first into dangerous and undesirable situations is some kind of bravery that our country needs.  But stress in this way of life is surely not lacking.

Having personal experience with that of the nursing field, it sometimes feels as if there is a multitude of types of stressors attacking from multiple different fields of view; some from afar, some point-blank.  There is always something else that needs to be done; sometimes nurses forget to breathe.

Working in critical care makes things, well, a little more critical.

A little more, intense.

Hence, the intensive care unit.

And, I could be wrong, but when things are a little more critical, a little more intense, there is an increasing amount of stress tagged along with said chosen career lifestyle.

I think humans do a really good job of specializing in the ability to always stress about something.  If it isn’t your work schedule, then its that funny way you looked at your coworker after a long shift and they started acting funny, so, oh-no, what if they ‘tell on you’ and you get in trouble with your manager.

Then there are those days at work that remind you why you fell in love with your career choice in the first place.

There are those days at work in which you are reminded that maybe your life isn’t as stressful as you always choose to believe.

My favorite moments of my job, what makes my job so beautiful even on my most crummy days, is knowing that I have been given the unique opportunity to comfort people through a transition in their life that has never been done; knowing that I am continuously being given a new chance every day to hug people through intensively stressful situations in life.

Sometimes you’ll see people walk into the hospital at their baseline level of mentation and physical standing; like literally standing and walking, just thinking they are slightly sick. Like a nagging cough or a few episodes of nausea and vomiting.

There are sometimes, when said person is only ‘slightly’ sick, family of course never assumes the worst; because why would you in only mild-ly seeming situations?

Sometimes the unexpected happens, and this type of unexpected is not a welcomed type of unexpected.

This type of unexpected comes at a cost.

It costs many tears, tsunamis of emotions, and even life itself.

I don’t talk about it a lot; I don’t talk about it to many people, not because I am ‘bottling it up,’ or because what I do at work can be so emotionally intense at times.

I believe myself to be blessed to get to do what I do.

There are many times what I do draws up emotional, spiritual, and moral questions.  Being around what I am around as a fulltime job can spark up interesting and seemingly morbid dinner conversations;

But death is a part of life; and it is something that needs to be talked about.

It is something that needs to be looked in the eyes and conversed about in every family’s household.

It is a scary part of life for individuals and for the family of individuals, which is why I count myself lucky to every so often be apart of this life-to-death transition.

And as a nurse, it is my duty to stand right in the center of this family’s experience.

I work night shift, so my day starts approximately around 1630-1700.

On this particular occasion, I woke up in an emotional and all-around crummy mood.  I was stressed about my own personal ocean of emotions and problems that, in the end do they actually matter all that much as I think they do.

I went to work.

And although this night for the family is not one they wanted, the happenings of this night was something that my soul needed.

It’s ironic how, on the days you need it the most, God gives you situations that completely humble you and remind you what true stress looks like, and you come to a realization that even your most stressful days are not as stressful as it could be.

It’s ironic how, on the days you need it the most, God gives you situations that completely humble you and remind you what a truly wonderful life we are living.

Being a part of any organization, anything ‘bigger then yourself’ is going to be full of stressful moments.  There is always some kind of administration work that needs to be done on your end, always keeping up with continuing education hours or trying to better yourself with the clinical ladder requirements.

There is always going to be something to stress about.

But at the end of the day, those aren’t the moments that have the biggest impact on your life.

At the end of the day, the moments that have the biggest impact on your life are the emotionally intense moments of holding a dying man’s hand as he passes away

rubbing a daughter’s back as she watches her father’s heart beat for the last time

hugging a crying son-in-law as he thanks you for taking such good care of his father-in-law.

Being in the midst of so much love and so many emotions humbles you almost instantly.

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If you are close to me in any way, you know my heart thrives in these moments

If you know me at all, you know I will always love my job.