Walking In To Work Tonight

Tonight is the 5th of 6 nights in 8 days. I really hate nights. Some people were built for them, but I’m just not. God definitely did not design me for that. I’m so looking forward to having a “normal” schedule, of being awake and alert and alive during the day, of having a life again.

I parked my car and was walking in to work tonight and realized that there aren’t many more nights that I would be walking into this building, to do this job, in this place, at this time in my life. Everything just seemed so surreal and for a moment it was like life was in slow motion. I became acutely aware of the impending changes coming.

Raleigh has been so very good to me. I came here for many reasons and chasing many things and I feel as though I received everything I wanted and so very much more. I will forever and always be thankful for this beautiful time in my life. I have received so much professionally, personally, and spiritually. I have grown, I have healed.

Sometimes life is what we make it. Sometimes life is what we allow it. Most the time it’s a little bit of both. I think part of maturing is realizing this fact to be true.

The other night I came to work and I passed a pt’s family member in the parking garage. I asked them how the pt was. “Not good”, they told me. “Fix them”, they said, “make them better”. I knew there was little to no hope for this pt. And here this family member was looking at me to make it right, to fix them, to give them back what they want. The pt died a few days later. I did not fix them.

I spoke to another family member for a long time. It was a good conversation. We spent a lot of time talking about Nashville. They had lived there in the late 1940’s. They asked a lot of questions about the pt’s future and what the outcome would be. It was sweet. They were sweet. That pt will mostly likely get better. I did not fix them either though.

I wanted to work in critical care so I could save lives, be a hero. I wanted to save people. I know now that it has nothing to do with me. I do not save or fix. I am no hero. I’m just the person that’s here, that’s involved in the decision making, but in reality it has nothing to do with me. Some people die and some people don’t. I love what I do; even more so now that I truly understand how little it really has to do with me.

My niece called me today. She got a shot in her bottom. She told me she cried. We laughed on the phone. She’s funny. I’m glad someone was there with her.

I would love to recap all of my experiences over the past 17 months, to revisit all the ways in which I’ve grown. But it would take forever and the list would still be lacking. All I can say is that I will forever be indebted for my time in Raleigh; it truly has made all the difference. And I am so much better for it.