no ordinary life.

Well, it's storming outside, in a freakish, icky way that makes me wish I didn't have to battle traffic--and geriatric drivers who, even in the most ideal of driving conditions, can't drive worth shit--to get to work tonight. It freaks the dog out--he's hated thunderstorms for awhile now--

I took the night off of work last night. For one, I haven't slept properly in two months, and I really haven't slept properly in about two weeks. I finally slept all day yesterday and last night, and woke up at 6 a.m. feeling mildly refreshed, and amused I wasn't going to bed at the time most people are getting up and getting ready for work.

It's been tougher than usual to be me lately--I blame a lot of it on sleep deprivation-burn out cycle. It's brutal! All I really want to do is get to the end of this assignment, take a couple of weeks off, sleep during the night and be awake during the day like my body and that of other diurnal creatures was meant to function, and get some perspective on what it means to be happy, and not hate yourself because you're so damned tired you can barely function.

And part of me wants to get done with this exercise in hell so I can have some time to reevaluate, rethink, and process a couple of issues that have come up in the past couple of months: like where I want to go with nursing, and if I really want to stay at the bedside forever. If the answer is no, do I really have enough stamina and money to go back to school? How long can I hang out at the bedside before I totally burn out on the system? How do I prevent myself from burning out?

Ideally, I'd work part time, or even per diem. I could be a saner, happier person if I was only committed to a couple days a week, or even three eight hour shifts. These twelve hour shifts are just too much for me, and for every brutal, back-breaking shift I encounter, I need a couple of days off just to get out of that stressed out, manic headspace.

After awhile, you start getting traumatized by even thinking about putting up with more bullshit at work; you start thinking, "Dude! I can't go to work and have another fucking shift like the one I just had, or I'm gonna lose it!" You're already physically and emotionally tired, and just the thought of going in, and having to put up with that bullshit one more day makes you want to pack it all in. When I get like that, I know I need a break.

It's not the kind of job where you can go in and be half-assed. Even if you are doing a half-assed job, it's not good for anybody. And even if you don't want to go in and be Super Nurse like usual, you know deep down inside that if you have a real, true emergency--or even five fakey, bullshit situations--that you can't just sit there and ignore it. You gotta get off your ass and deal with it.

And there are definitely some days when I wake up and think, "I can't be that person. I can't be a good nurse today." There are some days I wake up and think, "I've got to sleep, I've got to eat, and just today, I've got to have one day where I don't have to be The Nurse, or Your Nurse, or Anybody's Nurse. I have to take care of myself, today."

The problem is, I don't take care of myself every day. I can't. It's just too hard, and too much some days. So I don't sleep, or I don't eat properly, because I'm too stressed out, and so tired the thought of food nauseates me. I don't exercise, because I'm just too damn ass-dragging exhausted. But I still drag myself into work, and if I don't, I feel guilty, and worry about the money.

The sad thing is, no one thinks they're going to end up this way--work weary, beleaguered, wishing they had done something else with their life.

We all want to believe we are going to be happy, and have satisfying, fulfilling careers.

Sometimes you don't get everything. Actually, most of the time, you don't get everything, and most of what you do get is crap. But then there's that one thing that can make you feel human and real and capable of feeling again.

We spend most of our lives looking for that one thing, and the sad thing is, most of us haven't any idea what that one thing might be until it's far too late.