BitterSweet....

It's my last night on the medical floor of St. Charles-Bend...I am so excited for my new adventure, but so sad to be leaving the men and women who I have learned from, and learned to love, over the last year and a half. These people have helped me to become a great nurse, and they have become my friends...my family....I'm trying not to cry as I get ready to go home a few hours early....

The next few days will be busy...loading the u-haul tomorrow, the BIG party tomorrow night, and then my parents will be here saturday to 'move me home.' eeeck

uuuggg

I fucking hate packing. just sayin'

work...

I'm blogging at work, totally not ok...but hey I have one week left. nothing to report, I'm bored and sleepy. I am so tired of being tired. Working nights is really taking a tole on me...I am by nature a night owl, but it's impossible to live 100% at night. I end up switching between nights and days so frequently that my body never has a chance to catch up. My new job will be nights also, 8s instead of 12s...I think this will be helpful. 11pm-730am. I can go home and sleep, then spend the evening with my family, have a good relaxed dinner then head off to work...I feel like I'm getting a little bit of my life back!

I am going to be playing co-ed softball this spring, games start in the middle of May! I am so excited I can hardly stand it!! it will be great to be a part of a team again...and great to be active with peers! I have not played a sport in years! I work out with a personal trainer a few times a week...but sports are so different then just hitting the gym....I am so jazzed to hit and throw and catch a softball...I loved softball! wahooo

ok, back to work...ick....

7 days....

I have 7 shifts left at the job that has shaped who I am as a nurse. In 11 days I will be moving to Philomath, back in with my parents. How do I feel about all of this? It's this bizzare mixture of excitment, sadness, dread, and happiness! I am so happy to be moving on, so happy to be working at a different hospital...I'm excited to spend more time with my family and my beautiful niece.

I am dreading living with my parents again...I'm so happy for the opportunity they are giving me to pay of some debt, to have a place to live and food to eat...but I'm totally flipped out to be 25 and living with my parents, this does not look good. I want to be dating, starting a relationship with a man and here I am moving in with my parents...there is nothing appealing about a woman who lives in her mom and dad's attic....ugggg.

I am so sad to be leaving my amazing co-workers! they are my friends, and my 'bend' family! I love them all SO much! I learn from them each and every day! They teach me to keep smiling, they teach me to love myself, and they teach me how to me a better nurse!

There is a light at the end of the tunnel for me, a bright shiny light pulling me closer each day. A new chapter of my life is starting in just a few days, I can hardly believe it....

A new chapter....

Here I am changing gears again, packig boxes and getting ready for a fresh start. This time I'm going home. Home to be wit my family, to work at the hospital I was born in, to recconect with the people who mean the most to me, to watch me niece grow up, and to show that little town that I figured it out. I figured out how to be happy with just me.  I have struggled to "find myself" and realized that we never really know who we are, because we change with each breath we take.

So here we go, I am firmly on the path, and this path is in my highest good. I love me. and that is wonderful.

?

Deb I miss you more and more...the pain is fading, and I am left with only a small whole where you should be in my life....that place won't ever be filled. I laugh everyday, I still cry but it is followed by laughter. I am growning up, and becoming this strong independant woman, you would be proud of me. You would be so proud of Ben...he has direction, he called me and was respectful, he was the ben from that summer...I hope he stays this time....

I wish I could call you for advice about a real issue, not a freakin boy. I have to opportunity to move back in with my parents for 1-2 years. normally i would say "oh, hell no" but this makes since. We have figured it out and if I live here for 2 years I can be totally out of debt from my loans, or I could be almost out of debt and have a healthy savings account again....Then I could buy a house when I'm 28. Me, in a house, at 28...amazing. I need to talk it out, to think about all the negative and postive that come with moving in with your parents at 25. All i can see in this moment are the financial positives...not the negatives.....

My job is becoming more and more of a personal and emotional struggle...I know I need to go back to therapy to sort through it all, to learn how to leave it in the rooms and the beds. I need to compartmentalize. My live, My work life, to seperate but joined part of who I am. I used to define myself as a nurse, but now I don't know how to define myself....I am a girl who happens to spend 36hrs a week nursing, but aside from a nurse who am I?

How do you answer that questions: who am I? is there an answer? well, I am me...Can I define myself by my job or my hobbies? Is it my morals and ethical values that define me? Is it being single, owning a cat, living wiht a roomate not a partner, is it loving my family, or caring for strangers that define me as an individual? I don't think there is one solid answer for the question....When we are searching for ourselves are we even looking in the right places? Do you have to travel the world to find yourself, when looking inside is all it really takes? hhhmmmm

oh, and I burned my ear with my flat iron and am now missing a small chunk of ear lobe...freakin nasty!

Today I helped someone i love. My friend is a 29 year old mother of two who just had a double mastectomy; today I helped her shower. i changed her dressings, i did her hair, and dried her off....I helped.

from this day forward my goal is to be able to fill in the blank: today I helped________. three days a week I am a nurse, the rest of my time should be at least a bit productive. it's time to start giving back again.

Today I was rejected. rejected by a boy i like a lot...It stings, and it's embarassing. nobody likes being rejected, but I was rejected by a friend. ouch.

it's time for sleep. cancer sucks, so do boys. that's what I learned today. and yes, I just compared boys to cancer.