Grace-period

I am busy. I feel the weight of my schedule sometimes, and I sigh. Others tell me to say no to this or that...to create margin...to rest...to find balance. What is that? Ever since those blood clots, my life has been full-on-don't-miss-a-moment. Why? Well, I think it is because I am going to die. I don't have cancer or some disease that I know the progression and how it will kill me. But I am terminal. Simply because I am alive.  I don't want to miss anything. My husband says I am nosy. I want to get as many experiences as I can. One day none of this will be around. One day the laughter and hugs and learning will be done. Yes, I believe there is something after all this.  Yes, I believe that what is to come will be indescribable.  But...there is only so much time here. I plan to squeeze every last moment from it.

I am a nurse, and I make a difference.  I don’t make a difference in the traditional sense of nurse-the comfort and fluffing and hand-holding.  It has been about 5 years since I have found myself out of the safety of bedside nursing & caring for patients who often confronted a potentially fatal cardiac illness but were recovering.  Today I serve the less desirable patient-the addict, the prisoner, the mentally ill. Working at a prison was never on my radar.  I had the option in nursing school to do a rotation there, but I was scared.  I was scared of the K-9 units whose handler snarls, “Move over there and don’t look at the dog” as one navigates the cavernous halls, scared of the criminals, the pedophiles and murderers whose faces you might see on the evening news, and scared of being “locked in” which caused panic attacks during my psychiatric nursing rotation.  I was anxious about being on locked units, and even more about not being able to get...