Endless Possibilities

Day off!! Hooray! One of the best things about my stressful career is that it makes me appreciate the time I have off. I was talking with one of my coworkers about this yesterday, and she asked whether I liked this job. I found myself responding without hesitation that I did... which is odd considering the number of times I have been just completely worn out and in tears. This coworker has been a nurse for a long time, and has worked on our floor for a long time, and we were talking about how the ways that we deal with the stuff we see on a daily basis. And she pointed out that you have to know who YOU are, and be confident in your knowledge... because there are times when your best is simply not enough, or when someone (ahem, first year resident?) will question your judgement or try to argue with you. So therefore you need to have peace with yourself first, and then try to approach the job. It was an interesting conversation, and definitely made me think. I know that a lot of my stress comes from my desire for perfection... which is not a realistic goal, so I get frustrated when I fall short. I lose track of the good that is accomplished, and become completely focused on the few things that don't get done. Julie, one of my former preceptors, asked me yesterday whether I was going to be able to leave on time... because she knows that my tendency is to hate passing stuff off to the next shift. It was nice to have someone remind me of my goals. :-)

Last night I was thinking about how nice it is to feel like I am fitting in at work. I've met some really cool people, and even though we haven't hung out outside of work (yet), I feel like this is the place where I belong. I struggled for years with the idea of "fitting in", and oddly enough, it's when I got older and realized that I needed to just be myself and not try to conform that everything fell into place and people started to like me for who I am! Weird. :-) On Sunday, I was walking into the report room, and came in just as two of the older, more experienced, charge nurses were talking about me. When they saw me come in, they paused, and then proceeded to tell me that they were talking about me, and said some really nice things. But the thing that stuck in my head was that they said that I was definitely a "true 6NE-er"... meaning that I was the kind of nurse that fit into the culture and acuity of the floor. Which was like the biggest compliment ever. This will sound completely conceited, but hey, it's MY blog. :-) But yesterday, after I was circulating nurse on the floor for the first 8 hrs of my shift, several people came to talk to me and say some incredibly nice things. I don't think I have ever gotten so many compliments as I have over the last few days. I'm sharing this here because I was just so blown away by their kindness. It just reaffirmed for me that God has a plan for my life, and I think that this is indeed where He wants me to be right now.

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday talking to another of my coworkers, Mike, who just moved here from Michigan. (Boy, when you read this, it sounds like I didn't do any work, that I was just yakking all shift! I promise, I DID work hard. :-) But it was a slower shift than usual. ) Anyway, I asked Mike what made him move to Seattle, figuring that he knew people here or something. And he told me that he decided to try something different, that he wanted to move someplace outside of Michigan, outside of his comfort zone... and after looking all over the country, settled on Seattle and UW. It was neat to talk to somebody else who had just picked up and moved, hoping to start a new chapter in their life. I was able to share a little bit with him about being a Christian and purpose in life; not a lot, mind you, but just enough that he knew I was a Christian. I was pleased that he didn't hear that and go running out of the room. I don't why I expected that, but it was cool to be able to talk a little tiny bit about what I believe, and then move on to another topic. Hopefully, there will be more opportunities in the future! :-)

Another thing we were talking about yesterday was I-90, since both Mike and I had driven across half the country this summer to move here. I ended up thinking a lot about that trip and remember the fun that Dad and I had (and Smokey, too!) along the way. Even though some of the pictures have been posted before and elsewhere, I thought about this one, and felt the need to post it again because it is one of my favorites. It's the Native American memorial at Little Bighorn, and I think the reason I like the picture so much is because the sky is perfectly blue, and the running horses make me feel like the possibilties are endless. They say Montana is Big Sky Country, and this picture definitely supports that statement! Anyway, just a random picture I was thinking about.


This was going to be a quick post before I got starting on accomplishing things today, and turned into a long one... oops. Sorry! Time to go running. Then perhaps some errands. John Piper is speaking at Mars Hill tonight, which is exciting. I'm hoping to go, perhaps after dinner with Shaira. We'll see what the day brings.