First Day Lessons

My clinical placement for the semester started today.  Unlike other semesters, with one consistent placement, this one will change half-way through, and the two placements couldn't be more different.  For the first six weeks I'm placed on an acute inpatient psychiatric unit.  For the last seven weeks I'll be on cardiac care unit.  Like I said, quite the difference in approach.

I made breakfast for dinner, put on my pajamas, and was in bed to crash and veg by 6:00 tonight.  Eight students and one instructor spent an intense four hours in a tiny conference room on the psych unit today.  I can't remember the last time I had that much information thrown at me at once.  It was overwhelming.  Add to that a 2 hour commute home by bus in a blizzard, and I was pretty done in by the time I managed to get here.

I wasn't expecting to feel overwhelmed by a psych placement.  I've dealt with my own struggles with anxiety and depression for close to half my life, and continue to take medication and meet with my therapist to manage that.  I have close family members and friends who have gone through severe and ongoing mental illness challenges for decades.  I've worked with the homeless population in our city in the past.  Unlike most of the students in my group, this was not the first time I've seen the inside of a psych unit.  I really thought I was prepared for this.  I don't feel anxiety when I discuss mental illness.  I don't struggle to have conversations with people who also battle those illnesses.  But something about all that information being thrown at me in a concentrated manner drowned out my usual calm and invited anxiety out to play.

I knew that working on psych could trigger some of my own struggles, and so I was mentally somewhat prepared for that, but just the four hours of orientation left me feeling a bit like I was drowning.  It was easy to lose all the positives in the face of thinking about nursing on a unit where wearing a stethoscope is a risk to your health because having it around your neck could be a choking hazard if a patient became aggressive.

I sat on the bus home feeling overwhelmed and alone.

The creeping feeling of anxiety still scares me.  The little ways it manages to sneak up and become BIG still surprise me, and as I sat on the bus, it was BIG.

Quite frankly, I spent a large portion of that bus journey throwing myself a pity party.  I was overwhelmed, and that made it easy to fall into old patterns, to believe old lies.  I sat there feeling miserable, telling myself that I was alone, that I didn't have anyone to talk to about how I was feeling, how overwhelmed I felt, the creeping anxiety that was threatening me.

And it was there, on the bus, that the first day lessons merged with the lessons I've spent the last couple years of therapy working on.  Coping strategies kicked in.  I remembered that four dear friends had promised to hold me in prayer before the day ever began, because I'd been wise enough to anticipate the potential for anxiety and share that with them in advance.  I sent strategic text messages to friends who I knew would not only hold me in prayer, but would help to draw me out of my pity party. I rearranged my evening plans to accomodate the need for increased self-care.  I was able to recognize that several things that depress my mood were in play today - I was in a new and overwhelming situation, I hadn't had breaks for appropriate nutrition, it was blizzarding (Seasonal Affective Disorder anyone?), I didn't get enough sleep last night,  and I'm dealing with hormonal health issues this week that always make my mood that much more labile.

And in that is where the lesson lies.  It's continually a revelation to me when certain things emerge.

After a decade of wrestling with poor boundaries and not great relationships, I had no less than nine friends who I could easily text to ask for prayer and support.  Friends who I can trust to know and love me even on the icky days.  I'm NOT alone!

I can recognize when I need to do better at self-care.  I can remind myself just how important it will be for me to eat appropriate meals and snacks over the next six weeks, and be diligent about getting to bed.  I can plan to pull out my SAD lamp and use it more regularly.

I can recognize the things that I can't change immediately (hormones, weather) and acknowledge that I don't need to be afraid of my mood, because I understand what's making it labile.

I can recognize that though I haven't needed to see my therapist as regularly lately, I might need to be a little more proactive with that in the next six weeks, and that I should book an appointment to talk through some of this experience.

And I can say no.  I can change plans because I need to honor my introversion or need for rest.  I don't have to force something that isn't me.

And with those revelations, I feel just a tiny bit more confident heading back to the unit tomorrow. Because in those revelations I see healing, I see growth, and I even see my word for the year, honor.  I am learning what it is to honor the space I'm in, even while I'm continuing to grow into new spaces.

It's going to be a challenging six weeks.  I'm going to see and experience new things - some of them very hard things.  Some of those are probably going to trigger afternoons like the one I had today.  All of them are going to teach me.  They're going to instill greater compassion and understanding in me.  They're going to inform my practice as a nurse.  And I can choose to focus on the fact that they might be triggering, or I can choose to focus on the fact that even the triggering moments are ones for growth, for learning, and for recognizing how far I've come.  And I can choose to be grateful for that.  (Remind me of that, would you, if you catch me having any sort of extended pity party?  I might vent, but I want to choose to honor this season, too, and to honor it with thanksgiving.)

Semester Re-entry

It's been lovely to take some time away from this space.  To focus simply on resting, and accomplishing the myriad of things that don't get tackled when school is in session.

To be honest, though, I'm not sure what coming back to this space is going to look like.  I'm still thinking and praying about what structure will work best for this space in the coming months, and about what sort of structure will work with my school schedule.

You see, this semester is the one in this program that has the reputation of being the most intensely challenging.  This is the moment where, after eight months of telling us we essentially aren't allowed to get near patients, they suddenly throw us in head first, and expect us to, well, know things!

My placement this semester is in the hospital that is the furthest away from where I live in the city, and I'll be rotating, two days a week, every other week, between day and evening shifts.

In the meantime, I also have two full days (8am-5pm) of on campus class time, and several hundred pages of assigned reading per week.  Plus assignments.  I piled my textbooks up the other day and took the picture that you can see here.  That is 9 inches of dense reading. (Actually, there are two other books, not shown, for a total of an extra couple inches).  Topics like pharmacology, physical assessment, and pathophysiology don't make for light reading.  It's going to be a school heavy kind of semester.

In the midst of that, I'll be continuing my part time job as a care aide, continuing to lead a small house church, and juggling all the stuff of day to day life.

And somewhere in there, this space, still so important to me, fits in.  I just haven't quite figured out how yet.  Other than the Daily 5, which will continue, I hope to be here between 2 and 3 times a week.  I know that I want to continue with Whimsical Wednesday, and that I'd like to continue writing posts 1 or 2 times a week, and that I want it to have some sort of regular schedule and rhythm to it, but I haven't figured out what that will look like yet.

A lot is riding on how this first week of school goes.  On how the kinks of placements and transportation and reading and life pan out.  On answers that will be gained in the coming days.

So, in the meantime, just know that I'm planning to be back here more often, and that if you're reading this on Monday, when it goes live, and it's between the hours of 8 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon (mountain time), I'm probably in class, getting some of the answers that will let me establish a rhythm to my life, and that once I have those answers, and have sorted out that rhythm, I'll let you know, and be back here on some sort of more consistent basis.

Quiet Spaces

About once a year or so, I begin to crave quiet.  I feel an impulse to turn off whatever it is that I've been watching on DVD or netflix lately, to quiet the stereo, and just be.

Usually when that happens I still find space to write.

But this week?  This week I'm feeling that craving creep up on me, and I'm ever so aware of the impending arrival of another full semester (rumored to be the most intense in my program).  I'm ever so aware that my short summer break is waning, and that I need to honor the craving for quiet.

I'm aware that I need to be present to friends (both long distance and nearby).  That I need to take time to read, and journal, to pray and process, to create and simply to be.  That there are parts of my life that need careful attention, that there is cleaning and organizing that I want to accomplish before heading back to school.

And because I'm craving quiet, and aware of the waning of summer, this space is going to be quieter.  None of the "regularly scheduled programming" for the next week or so.  I'll probably pop in occasionally, and I'll be here with the Daily 5, but that's it.  Just the things that can't help but spurt out of me, and my usual daily practice of thanksgiving.

I'm off to honor the quiet in my life for a while, and I'm pretty sure I'll return with more to say than I've had in quite a while.

Exam Day

I have my final clinical evaluation and first final exam today.

My second final is tomorrow.

Tonight I'm hanging out with the house church gang to eat Chinese and drink wine.

It's just that kind of day.

Where it's about doing and not so much about writing.

But I'm hopeful that as I head into a month of time off, from rest will spring writing.  Hooray for that!

Digging Out

I'm still very slowly digging myself out from the hole of exhaustion that the last month led to.

I'm noticing though, that the oddest things make me tired.

My email inbox for example - just staring at it makes me feel exhausted.  The outstanding messages are all from people I want to correspond with - mostly my closest friends.  But somehow, I'm struggling to find the energy to respond and share life in what is normally one of my favorite methods of communication.

A cluttered or dirty space makes me tired, too.  That's not totally abnormal, but before it was something I would simply pick up and take care of.  Now it just exhausts me.  I stare at whatever the mess is, and wish it would go away, and let it paralyze me.

It's becoming clear to me that a new normal and balance of life is going to need to emerge - just how or what that is, I'm not sure yet.

In the meantime, have I mentioned that there are only about three weeks left in this semester? And that I then have about four weeks off before the next semester kicks in? And that one of those weeks I'm going to spend in Florida with some cherished friends?  Because those three things are keeping me going right now!

Of Work and Holidays and Beginning Again

Normally posts on my blog go live sometime around 8 am.  That's because normally by 8 am on a weekday, I've left the house, and I'm on my way to school, or work, or wherever else it is that I'm going.

This is the first holiday Monday in quite a while (thanks to Canada Day yesterday.  I love it when stats fall on a weekend and earn you an extra day off!).  I'm curled up in bed, and I only woke up about an hour ago.   I feel almost rested, having had three days off from school in a row.

Almost, but not quite.

I worked all three of those nights.  Evening shifts, from nine to around midnight, and then I trekked home on the train.

I haven't talked a lot about my new job here, in part because I need to protect the privacy of my employer, and in part because I haven't quite known what to say.

I'm working as a care aide for a disabled woman, and right now that mostly entails putting her to bed a couple of nights a week.

Going back to work, and juggling school and life as well has not been an easy transition for me.  I've struggled quite a bit with a resurgence of anxiety.  I've battled the extra exhaustion that comes from a change in schedule.  And the job itself has been one that has brought quite a few stresses. It's physically, mentally and especially emotionally demanding, and I've fought a lot of fears and dreads as I adapt.  Last night was the first mostly smooth, quickly accomplished shift that I've had, and I'm thankful for that.

The juggling of school and work is something that carries a lot of fear for me.  I've never done both successfully, and maintained a state of physical, mental and emotional health.  I feel like I have the tools to do that now, but it's still been incredibly rough.

I'm challenged particularly because over the last year I've recognized that I feel the most healthy, and the most "myself" when I have lots of space and downtime to attend to my need for stillness, to connect with God, and to find creative expression for myself.  The combination of factors in my life - the choice to go to school, the financial necessity of working, the knowledge that I need to maintain and pour into certain relationships - is not leaving much of that space for me, and there is a pretty steady level of stress in my life that to be honest, is stressing me out!  By that I mean that the knowledge of the presence of that stress, and the fears that go with my history of not being able to handle stress particularly well, are adding a layer of stress to what is naturally existing.

And so we come around to beginning again.  When I'm stressed, my diet suffers.  My willingness to exercise suffers.  I flip easily into survival mode.  I stop taking vitamins.  I don't manage sleep as well as I should.  I generally stop using successful coping techniques.

I've becomes so aware of this, and convicted of it over the last few weeks.  And I'm trying to take little steps, make little commitments, to begin again.  To use the coping techniques that I know are helpful. To take five minutes to swallow a handful of vitamins that will help protect my physical health and energy. To walk that extra flight of stairs, and eat blueberries or a nectarine instead of a cookie or cake.

I'm also thankful that there's only a month or so left in this semester, and then I will have nearly four weeks off from school.  That I will get to spend one of those weeks with some dear friends, away from home, gaining a change of scenery, and the chance to connect on a heart level.  That I will have some of that space I crave, and have to do less juggling for a time.

And so, I ponder work and holidays and beginning again, and make little baby stepping commitments towards the things that I know work for me.

Recovery and Catch-Up

My middle brother is married!  That was pretty much the theme of the last two weekends in my life.  One with a bachelorette party, and one with a wedding.  I got home from the reception somewhere between 1 and 2 am Sunday morning, fell into bed, and slept until noon.

I'll write more about the wedding later this week, and maybe even share a photo or two.

Today, and this week, really, are about recovery and catch-up.

I have all the normal school commitments (plus two midterms, and a paper to write), and the normal church and life commitments, and a few work shifts, but the rest of the week is devoted to catching up and recovery.

I've been around people a LOT the last few weeks, and my introverted self needs some time away.  My evenings for the week are planned around quiet and alone time, mostly, and I can't wait.

I need to catch up on sleep.

I need to catch up on email and blog reading.

I need to catch up on a stack of homework and assigned readings.

All very doable within a series of quiet evenings.

The most adventurous I'm planning to get at this point is venturing out to get groceries tonight.

It should be awesome.

I can't wait to have the chance to sleep, rest, and be restored.

A week devoted to catching up and recovery?  Sounds just about perfect to me.

Commendations

The last few weeks in school as we've focused on family centered nursing, we've spent hours upon hours talking about interviewing, about asking questions, and about offering commendations.  (So many hours, in fact, that a little inside joke about beating a dead horse sprang up in conversation with my best friend and the poor horse became the subject of a goofy ongoing facebook wall conversation.)  We've talked about relationships, and building rapport.  And we've stressed over and over and over again that the relationship, the question, or the commendation in many cases IS the intervention.

It's not a particularly revolutionary concept for someone with a background in mental health, or for anyone who has spent any time at all sitting across from a therapist, but bits and pieces of it, particularly the commendation part, have stood out to me and left me feeling my way around inside myself, asking if these things that seem new are truths here to stay, or visiting stories of the sort that taste wonderful upon arrival but leave very little if any lasting impression.

A commendation, it was stressed, is NOT a compliment.  A commendation draws on history, experience, and builds up a person's strengths.  It notices the deeper things.

Did I mention that we spent hours upon hours talking about this? Or the part where, in a room with people we may have only known for a few weeks, we practiced?  We sat in a circle and asked carefully formed questions about each other's lives.  And then, a week later, we sat in that circle again and we gave each other commendations (and stars, because well, the stars were a fun way to keep track of how many we'd given and received.)

Two commendations have been floating around in my thoughts for the last week or so - one from that time in a circle, and the other given somewhat inadvertently by a good friend as we chatted before a lecture began.

The first was a comment from a classmate, one who I don't know well, yet, a new groupmate.  She commented that she appreciated that I was very open about my life experiences, including the harder bits, and that I was willing to let those experiences be points of learning for the others in my group.

Those words hit home in a way I didn't expect.  For a long time I've had a commitment to live honestly and openly.  To speak truth wherever possible.  In the last year, especially, as I've found healing, I find myself more open than ever.  It seems crazy to me at times (I have a lot of internal conversations where even as I speak of a part of my past, my inner voice is screaming "What the heck are you saying? Are you aware of the potential negative consequences of sharing that?")  I've spoken openly about some of my history with mental health, about my faith, and even about some of the challenges that come with family and my current living situation.  I've done it even when I'm aware of the mental image of me that it could allow others to create.  And mostly I don't regret it, but I do wonder at times what others think of  me.  Because of that it was gratifying that this new classmate recognized and thanked me for this.  That this part of me that I do almost unconsciously now was noticed.

The second commendation made me laugh when it sprouted, unrehearsed from the lips of a good friend as we sat and chatted before class.  The two of us bonded last semester over horrendous group work, and the challenges of adapting to the craziness of nursing school, and we've become close, sharing far more than just venting sessions about homework and moving to the ins and outs of our lives.  I was telling her that I'd booked tickets to fly to Florida in August, to meet four other women who I know only from our online conversations.  Four women that I've never met in person.  Without thinking, my friend spouted, "You're ballsy!"

I burst out laughing, and we moved on with our conversation, but her words have stayed with me.  I've never thought of myself as a person of courage.  Never thought of myself as adventurous, or a risk taker.  I'm attached to my comfort zone, generally opposed to change on principle, introverted, and prefer schedules to spontaneity the vast majority of the time.  And yet, "You're ballsy!" echoes around my insides, seeing if it can make itself at home.  It acts as a mirror, reminding me of who I am becoming - that the courageous heroine I've appreciated in books since childhood might in fact just be a part of my true self.  This isn't even the first time I've gotten on an airplane to meet friends made via internet connections, it reminds me.  It bounces around some more and I remember that I love the controlled risk of riding a good roller coaster.  Another bounce and I am reminded of the work I have poured into facing the hardest bits of my life and finding healing.  A final bounce and we're back at the commendation from my newer classmate, the reminder that in a world that values privacy and hides brokenness at all costs, I've chosen to let the frayed bits of me show, and that sometimes those frayed bits help others to learn and heal.

Nothing could have convinced me that a commendation IS an intervention in the life of a client until I sat with these words spoken by friends this last week.  Until I saw the way that words of commendation spoken to me at just the right moment built on truths and desires that had been growing within me already.  Until I saw the way that those words gave me strength to keep going. Until I saw the way those words made me stronger.  It's a unique way to learn a lesson, an unexpected thing to experience in such a personal way a skill we're taught to use on others, but I'm oh so thankful for it this week.

A "Mature" Student

The other day a long time blog reader, Ally, posted the following on my facebook wall:

So i have a question-- and i don't intend to stir up any difficult emotions so let me apologise in advance should i do-- but i know that you're a couple years older than i am and you're back in school... does being several years older than the majority of students ever make you feel inadequate as a student, or even as yourself? It's a huge struggle for me, i've been in college for years and due to a variety of circumstances, i haven't been able to receive my degree-- even the AA with Taylor fell through at the last moment as i prepare to transfer out to finish my BA. Do you relate to this? Maybe you could write a blog post about it? 


I decided that writing a post to answer this question was exactly what I would do, and so, here goes...

I've thought a lot about being back in school at a much older age than you would normally find in an undergraduate program. (For those of you who are wondering just exactly how old I am, I'm 28, nearly 29.)  Graduating with a bachelor's degree on the opposite side of 30 was never on my list of life plans, but it's what's happened.

The short answer to Ally's question is no, I don't really struggle with feeling inadequate because of being older.  That said, there are reasons for that.  First, I graduated once - I know what it feels like.  Second, my current program is designed for students who already hold a degree, so while I'm older than a lot of them (I'd say the average age is 23-25), I'm by no means the oldest.  Third, it's only really in the last year that I've begun to feel really comfortable in my own skin, and I feel like I've carried that comfort level with me into this new stage of studying.

The longer answer is this - while I don't feel inadequate, I do feel very out of place sometimes.  I feel out of place when I listen to a 20 year old complain, and I wonder if I acted entitled.  I feel old when someone assures me that there is something in their life that they will never do (perhaps getting married, or having babies) and I remember being in my very early twenties and saying the same thing (and scoffing at the friends in their late twenties who assured me that that would change).  I feel old when I recognize that the classes are geared towards a generation a few years younger than me, who learned everything by doing, by group work, and very little through the sort of instruction I've been used to.  I feel odd when people talk about 30 like it's the worst possible age, and I realize that it doesn't feel old to me, and I'm actually looking forward to it!  I feel odd when I realize that in ways the other students haven't yet, I've learned some hard life lessons, and the cost of things.  I know the costs - personal, emotional, financial - of being an older student.  They're costs these younger friends of mine maybe won't know.

It's hard to be back in school sometimes.  There are days I wish I'd known my life direction when I was twenty, or eighteen, and I'd gone to nursing school right out of high school.  And there are days when I'm thankful for the decade of experience between my high school graduation and this return for a second go-round at university.  I have an empathy and a certainty of direction that I'm pretty sure is a rarity at twenty.  I have skills and commitment and the ability to make the hard decisions.  Oh, and quite frankly, I'm a far more dedicated student now.  The costs of this are real to me.  I've navigated the professional world, and finances, and I know what it costs for me to be doing this right now.  I pay my bills now.  I didn't do that the first time around (well, I paid my tuition then, too, but not food and rent).

All of that said, though, I'm thankful for the other students - the ones who are younger and the ones who aren't.  I'm thankful that the program I'm in is one where the majority of the student population holds a previous university degree.  I'm thankful for the perspective I have now - the perspective that lets me remember what it was like to be twenty, to be that young and keen student, and to appreciate that in my friends, while still holding solidly and comfortably to the person that I've become.

I hope that answers your question, Ally :)  If you have follow-ups (if any of you reading have follow-ups) leave them in the comments and I'll answer there when I have a minute or two, or expand them to a post if there's quite a few.

Awkward Moments

Last week the new semester of school started off with a ton of work.  How often do you finish the first day of a semester and realize you're already a couple hundred pages and a few hours of instructional videos behind?

And then there was the hygiene lab...


(y'all, I'm so scared about the kind of search term traffic this post is going to drive to my blog!)

You know you're a nursing student when you watch two different instructional videos and then have a conversation in a public place about the fact that the video failed to zoom in on the key area (in this case a penis) so that we really knew the difference between the videos and what to do in each situation.

There was the instructor who couldn't bring herself to use anatomically correct terms.  Yep.  A professional.  Can I just say that the already awkward situation was made that much worse by the use of the term "Mr. Happy"?

Or the hand motions in place of the word "breast" when discussing the hygiene needs of elderly ladies.

Or the demonstration and discussion about foreskins, using a surgical glove with a cut off finger tip.

More than that, there was the hilarious laughter and conversations that came from sharing the learning later that day with good friends. And later in the week with family.

Before the lab arrived, I was pretty much horrified.  The whole virgin thing means that, well, I'm not exactly acquainted with a man's intimate anatomy. I expected to blush through the entire lab, and couldn't picture having to care for a patient in that way.

After everything that went on in the learning process, I'm not even embarrassed about the craziness of the lab anymore.  Right now I'm totally amused.

I know I can be professional when that situation calls for it.

From other experiences in my life, I can empathize about the vulnerability of being in that position, and needing that sort of care, and I intend to use that empathy when I care for patients facing that sort of vulnerability.

But the experience of learning how to care for patients in those situations?  I think that might always make me laugh.

Lazy Day

For those of you who missed it, last Thursday was my last day of classes for my first semester of nursing school.  I have an exam this coming Wednesday, but it's not too bad, and so I've been luxuriating in quiet and space.  I slowly feel myself re-emerging from the haze of school.

And now, now it's Monday.  I'm house-sitting for my folks for a couple of days, and it's lovely to have a slight break from my usual more challenging living situation.  It's also lovely to have hours on end of alone time.

And so I'm propped in bed, knowing that in a little while I'll be propped in a sunny chair, and I'm making plans for today.

My day today will include:

• just a bit of studying, to get things going for Wednesday's exam
• cooking or baking of some sort
• a short trip to the university, to wrap up my clinical placement in a 15 minute meeting with the instructor (trying not to think about the hour each way I'm going to spend on transit for that 15 minute meeting)
• maybe some bus reading (you know, since I have that time on transit, and it's sunny outside)
• a bit of creative time
• a bit of television time
• sending a few emails I've been waiting to dedicate some time to
• curling up to do some writing that has also been on hold

It pretty much sounds like an ideal day as far as I'm concerned.  Nothing too strenuous.  A lot of time for creating, resting, being still in a different way than what I've been learning about since school began.  This sort of stillness is preferable if you ask me. It doesn't teach or challenge in the same way, but it's preferable.

And so I'm off to engage this day.  And I'm smiling, because days of rest are far too rare to waste!

A Night Off and a Coming Break

I took last night off.

When I got home from school, I finished up a few final polishes on my last paper of the semester, printed it, put it in my bag for submission today, and declared it an evening off.

Yesterday was my final presentation of the semester, too.

All that stands between me and two and a half weeks off are two half-days of class, one meeting, and one final exam.  By this time next week, I'll be a free woman.

The night off was blissful.

I sat in bed, caught up on The Voice (which, by the way, I'm loving for a second season in a row), ate some treats, and did some knitting.

The quiet was fabulous.  The break from school was even better.

And knowing that I'm only a few days from a much more lengthy break?  That's the best part of all!

Free Bird

I'm feeling a lot less stressed as I write this post.

The last school thing that had really been weighing on my mind was finished yesterday afternoon.  It was something I'd been dreading, and now it's over.

Don't get me wrong.  There are still two presentations, one paper, and one final exam standing between me and the end of the semester, and all of those hold tiny amounts of stress, but none of them hold the stress that yesterday held for me over the last week or so.

And now it's done, and I'm a free bird!

And at this point, I'm planning to celebrate my freedom tonight by having dinner with all my house church people (hello pizza!!!), and cuddling a week-old baby boy (a new honorary nephew to spoil!) for the first time.

It's a lovely thing to be a free bird!

Self Care, Holy Week, and Difficult People

How's that for a post title?

It's all I could think of as I sit here to start writing.

Those are the three topics on my mind today - self care, the arrival of Holy Week, and dealing with challenging people.

I spent most of my usual Sunday morning sabbath yesterday sleeping, and then emerged to enjoy an hour or so of quiet, curled up in an armchair in my parent's living room, enjoying the sun.  Because the last few weeks of school have been so incredibly challenging, I am in some ways quite aware of the need to increase my efforts at self-care.  I am reminding myself of ways to be gentle with myself.  I'm working to be aware of my own self-talk.  I'm increasing my effort to focus on finding things that need to be on my daily five lists at the end of the day.  I'm reading articles that remind me of these truths, and am conscious of the need to build time into my week for silence, and time with the friends who fill me instead of drain me.  I'm thinking about things like scheduling - the need for me to be aware of my schedule, and to bring some semblance of order and control to it, rather than to let it be something that just happens to me.  School gets to rule my life from 8:00-4:00 Tuesday-Friday, but I choose whether it controls the time outside of that, and I'm unwilling to let it have all of me.  That means I need to be diligent about scheduling and about time usage, so that I can have the time that I need for silence and rest.

And this is Holy Week - the most important week of the year if you believe in Jesus.  I'm more aware than ever this week of the need for school to not consume all of who I am.  This week of all weeks, there needs to be time and space for me to be in quiet, with Jesus.  To rest into that.  To meditate and contemplate the enormity of what it is that this week commemorates.  A number of years back, the most profound understanding of Christ's sacrifice that I've ever had came as I sat in a Catholic Palm Sunday mass.  It was profound, and I find myself revisiting and resting in that experience each year.  I need the space to do that this week - to set aside the myriad of stressors that school has held lately - to set aside the stressors I know it will hold in the coming week - and to rest into this chance to sit with Christ.  To walk the journey towards the cross, and then towards resurrection.  I'm thankful that the university doesn't schedule classes on Good Friday - that that day at least, I will be able to rest and pray and meditate quietly.

I suppose it is the challenge of interacting with people who could at times be termed "difficult" that has me so aware of the need for self-care, and the need, this week especially, to be conscious of carving out space for the things that are so much more important to the length and breadth of my life than school.  The challenges of hours and hours of group work remain immense, and the existence of varying personalities plays into that.  Even as I read and remind myself of coping techniques for "dealing with difficult people", I remind myself that I can only be accountable for my own actions and attitudes.  That how I respond is more important for me to be aware of than the challenges presented by the attitudes of others.  I don't get to control the universe (which I laughingly add is a pity - I think I'd be good at it!).  I do get to control ME.  Which means I need to choose joy and peace and kindness, even when I don't feel like it.  It means that yes, I'm aware of all the underlying currents in the room.  Yes, I feel those currents in a physical way.  And yes, that means it's that much harder for me to set them aside, that much harder for me to not be overwhelmed by them.  But I have choices.  I can choose where I focus.  I can choose what I believe I'm responsible for - I need to choose to remember that I'm only responsible for myself.  It's really easy to write those statements on a day when I don't have to go to school and spend 8 hours in a challenging atmosphere that is at times physically painful to me - almost oppressively so.  And I suppose that's why I'm thinking so much about self-care today.  I am better at choosing how those atmospheres affect me when I am making the time to meet my own needs.  I am more resilient when I have paid attention to being gentle with myself. And in Holy Week, particularly, I need that.

So I'm thinking today about self-care, Holy Week, and difficult people, and how, for me, those three things are inextricably linked this year.

On Safety, Stretching, and Studying

I've thought all week about what I would say here today.  How I would balance a need to "talk" out loud and process the things that have gone on in the last couple of weeks with a need to recognize that words have power, and that some of the people who read here from time to time don't know me well.  Basically I'm wrestling just a little bit with the reality that some of the people I know in real life read here, are new here, and I'm wondering if this space is safe.

It's funny that - it had just begun to feel safe again, after a long time of choosing words carefully because of numerous painful situations in my life.  And now, I wonder again.  I wonder about my decision to integrate this space with my daily life by making it visible on facebook.  It means my audience isn't always the group of spiritual explorers and travelers that it has been in the past.  It means that classmates, that people who know me only via other connections, have suddenly found themselves here, in this, my most intimate of spaces.  The place I've thought and processed and wrestled and questioned and celebrated and mourned in. The place that has been my place of safety for nearly seven years.

And so I started writing, still not knowing what to say, exactly, about the last week or so of my life.

School has been hard.  Some of the dynamics have been immensely challenging for me personally.  In my mind they reached a climax of sorts last week, via some tactics that felt contrived and manipulative.  It's never a happy thing for someone who thinks and feels deeply, but speaks slowly, to find themselves in a situation where they feel cornered, put on the spot.  The way I express myself in that situation is less reminiscent of the me that has worked to heal, to grow, over the last five years, and more reminiscent of me as a terrified child.  In those sorts of situations I generally can't speak without crying, and my filters of appropriate behavior don't work quite as well as I wish they would.  And cry I did.  Multiple times over. With an audience.  I spoke in ways that weren't as diplomatic or caring as I would have preferred, and I felt forced into speaking in those sorts of ways while an instructor was present.  It was pretty much my nightmare, and I spent a good deal of the weekend processing it.

I'm still processing it.  I've moved from being shell-shocked to angry, and maybe, just a little bit, in the last day or so, to a sort of tired resignation.  There are 8.5 days of classes left in the semester.  I actually wasn't counting, but a friend is, and she shared that number.  That number made me smile.  The end of this first phase of my nursing education is in sight.

I spent a lot of the weekend wondering if I was cut out for this - if I misheard as I listened and prayed and sought God's heart those few years back, when I was suddenly out of work and needing to know what I "wanted to be when I grew up."  It's a terrible feeling, to be so discouraged that something you've invested so much of yourself into is called into question.  I spent two years working to get in to this program, and ten weeks in, I've spent a number of days asking myself if that is a mistake.  Asking myself if I will be a failure as a nurse.

I was all set, in my ponderings this week to end this post in that place - in that place of wondering and discouragement.  But on Sunday I watched a DVD about birth that a midwife friend loaned to me.  Something about that video spoke to my heart, reminding me of a piece of why I'm taking this program. (Have I mentioned that I am exploring and very interested in working in a clinic overseas somewhere, and doing midwifery training while using my nursing skills?)  That reminder dissipated quickly on Tuesday, when I literally went home and cried (I wasn't the only one from my group, either.  Our sarcastic comments about tears and needing wine at the beginning of the semester are fast giving way to reality!)  Wednesday was just a little bit better.  It brought reasons to smile - things like bubble baths, news of a new honorary nephew's arrival, and a day at school that wasn't quite as hard.  It had text messages that reminded me that I am upheld in prayer, and it had a chance to gather with some leaders from other house churches.  It even had a few unexpected minutes of quiet to simply sit.

I don't know what the rest of the 8.5 days of class remaining will hold, I really don't.  I'd be lying if I said that there isn't a part of me working hard not to dread them.  But there is a bigger part of me that is continually reminded and reminding myself that I am where I am supposed to be.  That stretching hurts but results in growth.  That things will not always be like this.  And that I am made to do this - to work in profession that promotes healing, caring and compassion.  And some days I have to remind myself of that.  That and the fact that I have done lots of hard work to get to where I am.  That I am only responsible for my own words and choices, and though they're hurtful at times, I can't own what others say and do.  That I am coming more fully all the time into who I am created to be.  And that I am allowed to be independent, to think and feel deeply, and sometimes even to disagree.  And that that's okay.  Because there, too, I only own me - no one else.

So, I head into this day praying for joy, and feeling just a bit more bolstered in that than I have some days this week.  It's a long day, 8-10 hours of group work, actually, and that scares me just a little, but I'm ready.  My heart is reveling in a picture of a new little boy, in the encouraging words of people who know me, in the knowledge that I am loved, and that self reminders of God's calling and work in my life. I'm going to live this day in the best way I can - honestly, richly, and deeply, leaning into the reminder that (like a sermon I listened to yesterday said) "I am Jesus' favorite."  That silly little phrase makes me smile, and that alone makes it worth leaning into.

Stunted

Folks, it's Monday, one of two days a week where I don't have previously scheduled series on this here blog.  One of the days where I usually try to write a nice long essay about things I've been pondering, or feeling, or experiencing.  But I'm pretty sure that barring some unforeseen miracle, that isn't going to happen in this space today.  I'm hoping to be back on Thursday with another instalment in the ongoing discussion about food and body and spirit, but I just don't have that in me today.

My brain feels stunted at the moment.

Group work at school has stepped up in volume and intensity as the end of the semester approaches and brings deadlines galor, and with the increase of work I feel my internal muse slowly grinding to a halt.  Remember the introvert video from Thursday?  Well, I've been spending somewhere between 20 and 25 hours a week doing intensive group work for the last ten weeks, and the wear on my poor introverted self is starting to show!

Life has been busy on the personal side too.  I've been puttering for hours every weekend at the house my brother and his wife purchased a little while ago, helping with anything from gutting some of the rooms to painting and even assembling kitchen cabinets.  I've been having fun doing it, too, spending this time with family, and working with my hands.  In the evenings I've been scurrying around trying to see a few friends, stay (sort of) on top of emails and blog reading, and keep up with the people I love who live far away.  I've continued to teach at house church, too, as we've made the leap into studying the book of Romans together.  Looking into the week ahead, there is more of the same on my schedule.

None of these things are bad.  (Actually, I take that back, adding more group work isn't something I'd class as good!)  But the combination of all of them means that the delicate balance of silence, stillness, and time alone that I rely on to keep my muse running at full capacity simply has not existed in recent weeks.

And so I don't have much to say today.  My muse feels just a bit stunted, and seems to have gone into hibernation, waiting for me to rework my schedule and/or reach the semester's end and settle into a space of rest again.  I'm hoping to carve out a bit of silence today, amidst two coffee dates with friends that always speak to the deeper parts of my spirit.  A bit of silence and soul-stirring conversation might be just what I need today.  I sure hope so, anyway!

Revisiting Nursing School (nine weeks in)

If you had asked me the week before reading break how nursing school was going, I'd have told you that while I still didn't love it, I was starting to feel like I was settling into a rhythm with it.  That I wasn't coming home quite as exhausted from the countless hours of group work, and it wasn't taking the whole three day weekend each week to recover enough energy to force myself out of bed on Tuesday mornings and go back to school.

I might have spoken too soon.

This last week, the first week back after reading week, was rough.

It held a midterm, an in class paper, and lots and lots (as always) of group work.

The paper went smoothly.  The midterm not so much.

There is nothing as frustrating to me as an exam that is designed to test if you can think like a professor, rather than if you've actually understood and internalized the material through a process of learning and critical evaluation.  Historically I've been a fan of multiple choice testing.  The principle being that the correct answer is one of the options right in front of you and you have to have prepared enough to narrow down the options and then choose the correct one.  This exam, well, it wasn't like that.  If this exam had been a short-answer test, on many of the questions you could have made a convincing case for three of the four options.  Since it wasn't a short answer question, you had to choose the "best answer."  The problem with that is that you needed to guess which one the professor thought was the right answer.  Other questions were designed to be tricky, with plays on words and needing to be able to pick out things like "malificence" was a wrong answer because to be right it should have said "non-malificence." The correct answer hinged on your ability to pick out the fact that the professor had deliberately left out three letters and a hyphen.

When I'd finished the sixty questions, I sat and commiserated with a couple of friends, and we eventually decided to drown our sorrows in carbohydrates.  We landed ourselves in the campus pub at 11am, talked ourselves out of ordering alcohol and ordered big plates of hamburgers and fries instead.  The carbs served their purpose and temporarily soothed my grouchy soul.

And then there was the group work.  Apparently a week spent away from it, in quiet, tore down any built-up levels of tolerance.  Let me say right up front that I really enjoy the individuals in my group.  I like the mix of personalities most of the time, and I like each of them as individuals.  But this week was exhausting and some of the activities reminded me of the principle that sometimes it is better to internalize honesty, rather than bluntly speaking your mind.  Before reading break, an hour of cleaning on Friday evening was usually enough to allow me to separate myself from the exhaustion of the week and settle into rest.  This last week, that simply didn't happen.  By Sunday afternoon I was still feeling exhausted and drained, dreading the return to this method of study that is the hardest for my introverted, formerly homeschooled, independent learning self.  I am reminding myself of a long conversation I had at the beginning of the semester with a trusted advisor about coping strategies for group work, and promising myself that I will do a better job of incorporating them in the week ahead.  I'm also reminding myself of the need to spend time with people who really understand, and I'm looking forward to a couple of "dates" with good friends in the coming week, including a skype date with my closest friend, who is also doing this "mature" student thing, albeit on the other side of the planet.

I find myself wondering, sometimes, if I polled a group of practicing nurses, how many of them would say that this group work that is so common in nursing education actually prepared them for their jobs.  I know a lot of practicing nurses, and we've had cursory conversations on this topic that would seem to indicate that many of them are as in the dark as I am as to why this was considered the best method of educating us.

And y'all, it didn't help that the focus of this last week was on tolerance.  I'm not sure this is a safe topic to wade into on the wide open field of the internet, but I happen to believe that my love for Jesus means that I need to love people the way he did - unconditionally.  That means that I can disagree with various parts of their lifestyles and still care for them.  I think that that means that as a Christian, I should be the most tolerant and caring person around.  I know that I fail at this sometimes, but it's what I really do aim for.  Why is it that a faith that teaches me to love is one that is stereotyped as uncaring?  I spent the week feeling more and more frustrated with the instruction.  Feeling like I was being told at every turn that it is wrong to have specific beliefs, and most certainly wrong to express them.  Ironically, we spent a good deal of time at house church on Thursday night discussing a topic that was then central to the lecture I attended on Friday morning.  With the way the week had been going, I texted a friend commenting on God's timing that this topic would pop up after the discussion we'd had the night before, and then asked if she would pray, as I was trying hard to absorb the information so that I could critically evaluate it, but was instead finding myself reacting to what felt like a blatant attack on the worldview that has been shaped by my faith.  My friend's response was helpful - she acknowledged that this was a tough spot to find myself in, didn't minimize, and told me that she'd pray that God's spirit would enable me to respond in love.

Her response sits with me even now.  As I look at the week ahead, while still sitting in the midst of the frustrations from the week that just passed, I find myself thinking about the truth that love needs to be my default response.  That all my opinions, all my words, all my actions need to come from that place of love.  That I need to consciously temper my frustrations with love.  That I need to see others with eyes shaped by love.  And that I need God's spirit to enable all of that, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, and week by week.  And so that is my prayer, and my prayer request this week - that I would know God's spirit within me, opening my eyes to love more deeply and to respond only from that place.

Learning to Juggle

Most days, I wake up grouchy at the alarm that dared wake me at 5:30 am, a full 3 hours before there will be daylight in these winter months.  By the time I make it to the bus, though, it has usually hit me that I am up at this rather unholy hour because I am finally in nursing school.  Eight weeks into the program, that still amazes me almost every day.

It has not, by any means, been a bump free transition from the year and a half of working and waiting, and the month off over the Christmas holidays, to the daily schedule of student life.  If you ask me to describe the more, umm, creative learning activities, I'll preface them with a statement that begins, "I think we were supposed to learn..."  The fact that I am paying thousands of dollars each semester in tuition and must preface my descriptions of learning activities in such a manner is, well, a point of tension in my life to say the least.  The fact that these activities regularly resemble junior high social studies class?  Well that's definitely the icing on the cake.

Most days, though, if I stop for a few minutes, and sit quietly on the bus at the end of the day, I go back to the amazement that marked my mornings.  The slightly stunned feeling that after a year and a half of waiting, of risking my heart hurting by longing for this, it's happening!  I am learning things like administering vaccinations, and taking blood pressure readings.  Granted, the method of learning might sometimes include a slightly twisted version of charades (read: my idea of hell), but I'm learning!

I've been thinking about all of this this week, while I'm at home, reading, doing homework, and preparing to dive back in to the second half of the semester.  I've been thinking about all sorts of things that deserve (and will eventually get) posts of their own.  Things like longing and fulfilment, like coming into my own skin, like this odd new voice that sometimes leaps out from inside of me and begins to speak.

But this week I'm particularly thinking about school, and about my one word for the year, still.  I'm thinking about how I sometimes feel resentment about my school schedule, and the demands that it places on my introverted self.  How I resent the decisions and prioritizing that it forces.

I was thinking about it yesterday as I contemplated the merits of silence, versus the desire to catch up on some favorite television shows.  I thought about it as I pondered sitting in stillness versus doing some homework, and doing that homework versus catching up on my friends in bloggyland, whose writing I've fallen hopelessly behind on once again.  I was thinking about it as I pondered the dozens of times I've had to consider whether or not I could say yes to an invitation from close friends, knowing that I need to conserve the energy that time with people requires of me, so that I can make it through a week of classes and the hours and hours of group work each day.

I don't like being forced to choose, to prioritize.  I want it all.  I want to be in school, but still have ample time for quiet and stillness.  I want to have the stillness, but stay caught up on my favorite blogs and television shows.  I want to be with my closest friends unfettered, without having to consider that saying no to them just might be the way I make it through to Friday without melting into a puddle of tears at the end of the day.

It's fascinating to me how different it is to live in the reality of something, rather than my idealized expectations of it.  I didn't think about the demands that nursing school would place on me.  I just followed my heart into the direction it felt Jesus leading.  I didn't think about the challenge of the word "still" as I headed into a year where my schedule would be more full than it has been in the last five years, I just followed that Jesus voice inside me again.  And reality is different than ideal.  It's more explored, and it comes with tensions and tradeoffs.  It comes with its own beauties, and its own raw places.

And so it was that yesterday I juggled.  I watched a little bit of TV, did some homework, and sat for a bit in quiet.  I lit a few candles and tried to let my heart lead the way, asking myself and Jesus continuously what it was that I needed in that moment.  Did I need to write?  Could I do that with something playing in the background, or did my heart crave silence?  Could I head out to see some extra people, or do some errands, or did I need to sit quietly at home?  It's new to me, this juggling, this sitting in this particular tension that comes between the reality of two callings in my heart - one to the demands of school, and one to my word and to stillness.  And so I juggle, and I learn the importance of checking in regularly with myself and with Jesus.  And slowly, oh so slowly, even when sometimes it looks like acknowledging that I feel just a bit resentful over these forced choices, I am making my way forward.

Reflecting on the First Week of Nursing School

It's kind of a weird thing to have a first day of school in an undergraduate program when you're a lot closer to thirty years old than to eighteen.  Fun, but kind of weird.  Thankfully, the program I'm in is one where the majority of students are closer to my age than eighteen.  There are a few who did a year or so of university, and transferred in, the students who are 20-22 years old (and you can tell which ones they are), but most of the students have similar stories to me - we studied something else, worked for a while, and we're entering nursing with a certainty that this is where we're supposed to be.  A certainty that I think can sometimes be hard to have when you're 20.

I had the fun of picking out my first day of school outfit, and the fun of the anticipation of realizing all over again that this dream is finally happening for me.  I went with a pair of jeans, a hoodie, and boots in case you were wondering - deciding that comfort trumped fashion sense for classes that start at 8 am.

And that's another thing.  I have to be at the university campus for 8 am four days a week.  I live at the opposite end of the city from the university, which means I'm back to rolling out of bed at 5:30, and catching the bus at 6:30.  Not the most ideal study schedule for this night owl who truly believes that nothing of consequence should happen before 10:00 am!  (Definitely something I'm going to have to get used to, though, since by 10:00 am, my lectures are two thirds over!)

The expectations were high, and the first day met them.  The morning theory lecturer seemed like she would be a good communicator, and the afternoon, well, the afternoon was pretty cool.  Tuesday afternoons for three hours, we get to learn practical skills.  They're pretty much the only practical skills in the whole semester, so I fully intend to cherish those three hour time blocks.  In the first week, we spent about two-thirds of that block learning about asepsis, and hand-washing.  The last while we learned how to properly remove soiled gloves, and how to assemble a syringe.  We may even get the chance to do some school vaccinations in a few weeks!  (Which, by the way, makes me laugh!  The only human patient I'm liable to see this semester, and my job will be to inflict pain!  Too funny!)

If I'm honest, the first week was confusing.  The material in each of the four classes seems to hopelessly overlap, and the clinical placement for the semester is the least defined of any that we'll encounter over the course of the degree.  I'm taking comfort in the fact that in talking to other students, everyone is confused, and even our clinical instructors are telling us that it's quite normal to be confused at this point, and that it will become clearer as the weeks progress.

My other observation would be that nursing school is apparently going to involve a whole lot of group work, random games, and everyone talking at once.  In my first week I speed dated ten other women, played the part of an affluent politician on a version of Survivor and was promptly voted off the island to meet my death at the hands of a zombie apocalypse, and survived a day with close to six hours of 19 women and one man talking all at once.  It was a little bit nuts, and hard on my introverted, prefers one on one or very small group interaction self.

And then there's this - after the first week, I find myself grappling with my One Word for the year.  My word is "still" - a word that fits my reflective, introverted heart well.  A word that is easy to live when there aren't other demands on my time.  A word that is easy to live when I have hours a day to engage in creativity - to read, to write, to sew, to cook, to knit, and to reflect.  It's not a word that's quite as easy to live when 8 hours a day are spent in the company of others, and at least half of those are spent in the course of constant interaction with others, and largish groups.

After only one week, I am realizing that I will need to prioritize my life.  That there will be times when I will need to say no to meeting with friends I truly love, in favor of valuing my need for rest and stillness. That I will need to create ways to maintain health - to exercise and eat well.  That many things will have to be assessed in terms of whether they will give or drain life and energy.  Thankfully, most of the things that are priorities in my life outside of school have already been assessed in that manner - that's how they have become priorities.  I am realizing, though, that the rigorous school schedule is going to require me to develop discipline in new ways.  To learn to rest more actively - to procrastinate less, and do the things that feed my soul without frittering away an hour online or watching a video first.

I'm cautiously excited.  There are things that scare and frustrate me, and there are things that make my heart sing, and I am learning, even after only one week, to balance them inside me, and grow stronger, heal more deeply, and tell a better story.  I am learning to live all of my One Word's from the last several years in new ways, and that thought causes an involuntary smile to spread across my face.

Friday Thoughts!

I'm curled up in a chair, in the sunshine, with a movie playing in the background.  I have lists to make and things to do, but I wanted to stop in here first!

Orientation yesterday, was, well, boring!  But, it totally hit home that I'm starting classes on Tuesday - that my nursing dream and goal is becoming a reality!  So cool.

So, today I have lists to make - things that need to be done this weekend, mostly.  Things like shortening the scrub pants I bought yesterday - the pants that are currently long enough that if I want them to touch the floor, I need to hold the waistband at armpit level.  Things like reading and cleaning and organizing and sleeping.  Things like watching the newest episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice.  And things like taking a CPR course.

It's going to be a good weekend - to rest and recoup, and to fully prepare myself to dive in with my whole being on Tuesday.