Am I Still Here?

I ask myself this all the time as my life has become a swirl of long, wakeful nights intermingled with short, sleepy days off. Since March I’ve been working three twelve-hour night shifts as a clinical coordinator (supervisor) and coming home, trying to meld myself back into the day shift mom I have to be for my four or six kids who haven’t seen me for three whole days. That part of it aside (and it is a huge part), being a part of a new hospital has been THE most stressful experience of my work life; hands down. Taking this job was making a leap for me in so many ways and it still is, every day, a challenge to walk into that place. The last four months have brought me tears, true anxiety, sleeplessness, uncertainty, and insecurity. They have provided a disconnect from my family, from my amazing husband, from organization (not that my connection with THAT was ever very strong), and from my confidence as a professional with sixteen years of really good experience doing something I have loved. I ask myself if going to work should be so much a struggle that it infiltrates my whole life? Is it worth it? Why do I do it when I frequently wonder to myself if I am even still here?

My professional predicament reminds me of what it feels like to birth a baby, or to coach someone through that experience. Since I’m a birth junkie, everything must relate back to that. When someone is in labor, all you can really tell them when they are suffering is to hang on, that it will be worth it, that the end product will blow them away and that all the pain and suffering will melt away when their baby is handed to them in all of it’s screaming and slimy glory.  I do tell myself this many times every week.  Unfortunately…I so asked for this.  I, like an idiot, couldn’t be happy with staying where I was.  I HAD to reach for a challenge.  Why do I DO that to myself?

Sometimes when I write, I feel I have to wrap everything up into a tidy little package of a conclusion.  There must be a moral to the story that can make the reader feel all good…that their time was well spent with my five paragraphs.  Well the moral here is, you get what you ask for.  Get bored with your job?  Land a shiny new coordinator position at a new hospital?  Put your head between your knees, grab your ankles, get a Xanax prescription from your doctor and hold on for dear life because, honey, it’s gonna be a wild ride.  For now, I’m going to stay on the ride.  I’m going to hang on.  I do feel myself growing as a nurse, as a resource to the nurses I work with, as a person, as a woman.  This job WILL benefit me.  I already feel my skin getting thicker…getting lambasted by the chief of the department in front of your staff will do that to you.  I do see growth in my ability to consider the source, as my Dad has always told me to do.

So, Xanax at the ready, head between my knees, dark circles under my eyes…I will continue to torture myself and wonder if it’s worth it.  Until it isn’t.

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