Thursday, March 13, 2008

Limping into the 21st century

According to my sister, I'm now much closer to being cool... I've joined Facebook. I'm still trying to sort out what all this is about. I've found some old friends there, and that's nice. I'm definitely enjoying being able to reconnect with people I haven't talked to in so long.

It gives me a sense of perspective. Life has continued for all these people, even though I haven't been there. Which is not to say that I think I'm not important, just that I take myself too seriously sometimes. In my own world, I am the center of the universe. My family enables me. I get my way a lot. In their words (and my own) I am a princess. I don't like things to be too difficult. Which is not to say that I don't fight for what's important, just that I keep it to a minimum at all costs. So, in my normal center-of-all-things attitude, I forget that my friends have continued on in their lives, falling in and out of love, moving around, having children, in other words living, even though I am not there. I suppose it happens to everyone to some extent, we can only concentrate on some many things at once... something/someone ends up on the shelf.

So welcome to reality, princess!

Also, it's been a few posts since I added some pictures. So here they are:

I don't have a baby anymore! He's very much an independent toddler.


They are phasing me out... don't need my help pushing on the swings, going down slides... I can just sit back and watch, and take lots of cute pictures.

Friday, March 07, 2008

not so whiny today

I guess that in my last post I was so busy being self-indulgent that I forgot to mention the important fact that I did in fact graduate, with honors, and successfully passed the horrid, dreaded NCLEX (nursing licensing exam). I am an real nurse at last. And I'm really sure that I've found my calling. It's that ever-elusive dream of 'what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up' finally in my grasp. I don't think that I want to do exactly this aspect of nursing forever... but there are so many exciting areas to explore.

Right now, I work in the burn unit, an admittedly challenging, not-for-everyone place to be. We take everyone at my hospital, insured and uninsured, and give them exactly the same treatment (this of course, is why I chose to work at the hospital that pays the least... a philanthropist at heart--and the experience is better, educationally). And let me tell you, treatment for burns is *hugely* expensive. Between the dressings, the antibiotics and other medications, and the surgeries, we are talking tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The patients are difficult: the meth-lab explosions, the abused, the elderly... and the stupid (Darwin awards could be handed out regularly). Of course what everyone always thinks of are the wounds... the oozing, gory, yucky wounds covering huge portions of the patient's body. I still love it. It's a niche... and it's mine.

But I'd also like to try flight nursing. (For the uninitiated, it's the nurses who fly in helicopters to the scene of the accidents, extract, stabilize and transport the patients back to the hospitals.) Apparently I'm a bit of an adrenaline-junkie.

Then when I'm a bit older, I'd like to go back to school, get a master's degree and work as a nurse anesthetist. (They make the big bucks.) And finally, I'd like to return to school again for a PhD so that I can teach the next generation of nurses.

It's nice to have goals.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

not very good at this

I'm trying to get back into the groove of my life. It seems that I am more than a little out of practice. One year of non-stop, high stress, nothing-but-me-and-the-schoolbooks, and I've forgotten how to be a good mother, a considerate wife... even a decent friend. When I get home, all I want to do is hide in my room and let someone else be parent. I want to go out party and be selfish, but I know that I have to be responsible and pay off the disgustingly large debts I racked up over the past several years of living outside our means. Now that both daddy mushroom and I make reasonable amounts of money for our family size, we should be looking forward to 'the good life', a bigger house, a nicer car... and so on. Instead, we remaining scraping by, borrowing more money from my parents so we can pay off the increasingly demanding creditors, and then pay my parents back.

And clearly I'm wallowing in self-pity tonight.

I think what's actually deep-down bothering me is that I don't have any geographically and emotionally close friends. (My emotionally close friend is very far away, and I never see her... though at least we speak on the phone fairly regularly). I have many acquaintances that I have to badger and harass to get to hang out with me. And then there are the admiring young men who want me to come make them look good at clubs... but that's too depressing to even think about. My poor clinically depressed sister, sometimes she'll hang out with me, but then I usually have to endure the in-law as well.

Oh my, I'm full of whine tonight.

So, my new project is to be more likable, and find people who appreciate me and my particular brand of craziness.

Oh, and to post more often. Even though I know that only about three people actually read this anymore, it makes me feel better just getting it out. I suppose that's the point. Airing my dirty secrets, I suppose.

'Til next time.