I have been quiet for a bit. Some people took to social media immersion during COVID and I went inside, lots and lots of introspection also a few job changes in the process….
Last year, I wrote and posted about my transition to case management which I titled a Stranger in a Strange Land. Unfortunately, as time moved on I only felt more frustration and anxiety around that position. I was fed up with healthcare and made a completely rash decision to leave and work at a for profit healthcare organization. In my mind they were at least being honest about being a business. Boy, was I naive!
In the midst of the pandemic hitting the east coast, I was making a job transition. Starting a new job in 2020 on April 13th with people I had never met, didn’t know what my face looked like and pretty much stayed clear, keeping their distance from me for fear of the virus was quite a disorienting, isolating and unsettling experience. Within the first week of my employment, I found out how the concept on paper was a far cry from the execution and I was reeling. How could I have done this to myself again?!? No matter where you run you are always still there. Can’t hide in mind numbing jobs forever.
COVID lock down was in full swing and although it has brought about so much pain and disruption, there have been some benefits like introspection. Taking this opportunity to really look at myself and decide what I wanted to do with my one bright life was in order. What work would help me feel purposeful. Just getting paid with weekends and holidays off was no longer enough. It had to be meaningful.
I am sure many of you can relate and have had your own epiphanies during these trying times. When I took the job, I had negotiated for a week of vacation at the end of May in the irrational hope that things would be normal by then and we could take the cruise to Bermuda we had scheduled to celebrate the graduations of both of our children. Well as you all know, that did not happen but I took the time anyway to really do some soul searching.
I enlisted the help of my intuitive friends for guidance to help me discern where my path was leading. Over the course of that week, I signed up for an End of Life Doula certification course and decided to return to the hospital network that I worked for previously as a home hospice nurse. This was done with a mixture of exuberance and trepidation. Could I really do this work? It had been so long since I worked hands on as a nurse, it was a new specialty on top of that and could I get over returning without all the seniority that I previously had?
So it turns out that I could and did; however, my anxiety has been out of control as I face the uncertain and unknown. Beating myself up every step of the way with all my perfectionist tendencies along the way. The epiphany for today that prompted me to write the poem Bitter and post for the first time in months was the realization that underlying it all was actually bitterness.
I am bitter about the choices that I have made which led me back to where I started with nothing to show for the many previous years of dedication. I am angry with myself for the choices that I have made and for allowing myself to be a victim of my own self-doubt and anxiety. I am fearful of loss that was never resolved when I was a young girl watching my dad leave us, losing my grandfather to cancer unknowingly and my home and dog due to divorce. The loss of stability in those formative years has impacted me more than I believe I ever realized until this moment. Echos that reverberate through the years of my life spurring an impulse to run like hell as soon as things get hard or what I perceive to be out of control or potentially hurtful to me.
So how do I move forward now, in this moment as a grown woman of 49 years? How do I overcome my urge to run and self-sabotage by planting myself and finally facing my demons, putting them to rest so that I can actually walk through the years of anxiety, anger and bitterness to the other side of this brick wall and fulfill my purpose? To experience the beauty and exquisite sensitivity and vulnerability of this nursing specialty called hospice. To celebrate life in such a way that dying is a natural part that is filled with dignity, comfort, love and peace.
I forgive myself and know that no experience is wasted. Everything has happened to prepare me for when the timing was right and that time is NOW. I want to come full circle in a healthy and whole manner showing up for not only my patients, families and colleagues but myself as well. The only way for that to happen is for me to come to grips with me and all the stories that play in an endless loop in my head. No more living rent free, you are officially evicted! This is my life and I am taking it back. Naming what has been and Declaring what will be. I am an excellent nurse with a hospice heart. I will own my destiny and commit to it whole heartedly 💜🌟🙏🏻🌟💜 In the end, that is all we can do. Show up and be present. Nothing is guaranteed or perfect. We all just need to be our best selves and love everyone, including ourselves, as much as we can.