NursingZen

It’s 7:17 am, I’m showered and typing, and I feel fairly awake. I’m impressed by this small miracle. I need to remember to celebrate small steps toward being a nurse. Another item of note: I haven’t been late to class or any appointments this week. One week. It is a bit crazy to realize that I’ve only been ‘on the go’ for a week. I definitely felt Gemini-like this week too, which I may have to get into another time. I’m afraid I’m going to be starting a coffee habit again, too.

Update: It’s the evening now. I’ve met about 40 people in one week, half the class. I’m one of those who find it awkward to stand or sit next to someone whose name I don’t know but who obviously is part of my life now. So I introduce myself.

We took our class picture today. Over the past two years I was one of those prospective students who looked longingly at the 2006 MEPN photo, trying to see if I could glean any secrets to gaining entry to this program. And now here I am in that picture. It all feels a little surreal.

Today, while soaking in the sun during my lunch break, I read one of several academic journal articles that I downloaded out of sheer interest. This one was called “Illness Beliefs of Depressed Chinese-American Patients in a Primary Care Setting.” At first I felt a bit nerdy to be reading something like this out of choice, to be so thoroughly engaged with an article about a scientific study that by necessity is written in a very academic, dry way…but then, inexplicably, I began to feel a satisfaction that’s hard to describe…and then–and then I began to feel a glimmer of hope! A hope that maybe I’ve actually chosen the right field of study for me…otherwise why would anyone independently forage for these types of readings?

Then something else miraculous happened: I found that the article wasn’t over-the-top scholastic; it wasn’t daunting to read; it was even comprehensible; in fact—gasp—do I dare say it, I found parts of it a little too simplistic. I thought it could have gone deeper. I had questions and saw at least one important aspect overlooked by the eminent MDs! I was shocked by the idea that maybe I do or will have something to contribute!

The master’s portion of my program will consist of a lot of reading, analyzing and writing of journal articles and research studies. It will consist of learning how to apply these studies to practice. I’m excited for all of that. It’s the RN year of the program that is provoking all my anxiety right now.

When I graduated college and got my first job, one of the first things I did was buy myself a new book from a chain bookstore. Not a used one or a borrowed one, but a new one that was just released, that I wanted to read that very moment, that was my very own. The next thing I did was buy a full-price skirt from Meghan Kinney. A new one from that season, not one on sale. With these two purchases, I felt like I made it, like I had taken my first step toward being a self-sufficient, self-actualized working adult.

In a few months time, I gravitated back to used books. I missed the musty smell of the secondhand stores, the digging around for titles I forgot I wanted to read. I gravitated back to clothing on sale and secondhand skirts that smelled like the secondhand books.

Today, I’m back at the public library, to the anticipation of seeing whether a book will be on the shelf, to waiting patiently in the queue for a book to be returned, to the frustration of trying to finish a book within the one-week deadline, and often accruing late fees. I write off these late fees as my donation to a public library system that sustained me throughout my childhood.

Not much surprise here: with my free time ticking away, with competitive, grueling days and sleepless nights imminent, my drive to write has picked up. The desire and dreams of writing full time have come alive, taunting me, guilt-tripping me, demanding of me why I’m about to sign away the next few years of my life to something other than writing.

My writing muse is passive aggressive. When I had all the time in the world for it, it did nothing, it asked nothing of me, and it gave me nothing. So, I detached from it and listened to what else my soul needed. My soul told me I also needed human contact; I needed to be out of the office, on my feet, helping people, and talking to people; I needed to keep learning and keep being challenged. But now…oh now that I’ve committed to myself to humanitarian work, this muse that is like a passive-aggressive-fickle-co-dependent-lover keeps calling me, trying to entice me back with confidence/ego boosters and whispers of story lines and must-write characters.

My writing and humanitarian selves have been going at it these past few days. They keep me up at night or wake me in the middle of the night. But the writing muse is the worst. It has me second-guessing myself and fantasizing of a drastic change in course. Like that old co-dependent lover who shows up out of the blue, it teases and I’m tempted.

But TODAY I realized I’m older and wiser now. I’ve been around the block, so to speak, and I know myself better. I can see there’s a very good chance that if I (again) give myself all the time in the world to write, I just won’t do it. That’s the sad truth of it. For me, for now, it’s the angst of not having time to write that drives me. What a messed up psychology! I know that is certainly not a recipe for success.

But I can’t keep going back to the writing muse when it shouts for attention. When I decided to try nursing, there were many good reasons for it and many hours of agonizing decision-making that led me to that choice. I’m not going to throw that all away now, not before I give it a real try.

The idea of ‘being a writer’ may be more appealing to me than actually doing the hard work to get there. I think I’ve already given myself ample opportunity to take it seriously, and I didn’t capitalize on it. I can’t blame it on systems of inequality, parental pressure , ignorance or lack of resources anymore. Most of those barriers were probably real in college, but not now. I’ve had years to try it and I didn’t. Why? I don’t know. Could be sheer laziness, could be fear of success, or just plain fear. But I don’t deserve any more excuses. I am committed to a new path now and I’m going to see it through. If my writing muse is my true love, it will stick by me and be there for me during and after school.

Talked to one of my best friends. For the first time, I expressed my confused feelings and rambling thoughts about embarking on the new journey. I admitted for the first time that a part of me hoped I wouldn’t get accepted to UCSF so that I could take a more laidback track at Samuel Merritt. A part of me also feels a bit guilty for taking the place of someone who might have wanted to get into MEPN more than I did.

“Are you trying to self-sabotage?” my friend asked.

I don’t think so. But I realized that if I keep focusing on feeling anxious and scared about the work ahead, I will only feel defeated before I’ve even tried. I must stop this.

I also realized that my apprehension is not about the work per se, but about the realization that much will have to be sacrificed this year. I won’t have time for any of the fun activities that I’ve been dabbling in these past few years. No more writing, reading, sewing, iMovie.

But while talking to my friend, I realized that I need to stop complaining about and fearing what hasn’t happened. I need to EMBRACE the amazing opportunity I have to be in the MEPN program. I need to get excited. I need to give myself 150% to this opportunity, otherwise why do it at all? What a waste the last two years of preparation would have been, what a waste the next few years will be if I don’t approach this journey with all my passion.

During my volunteer work at the hospital, Roel, an older Filipino male nurse said to me: ‘You can do anything and everything is worth trying because YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU WILL THINK OR HOW YOU WILL DO. Don’t listen to what others say; don’t let their anxiety or even pragmatism scare you.’

It’s sinking in a bit more. I just realized that I’ve been sleeping deeply the last two nights. When I woke up in the morning, I no longer woke up wondering about school. WHAT A RELIEF. It’s amazing. I realize now how disturbed I was all month. I was aware of it intellectually, but didn’t realize how great it’d feel to not have the mystery on my back.

I’m also thrilled to see how the week of deep cleansing prior to this day turned out to truly be the closing of one chapter in our lives and the opening of another.

I’m getting more excited. I can feel it in my bones. Especially when I think about my end goal, which is to work with low-wage workers. I couldn’t be more optimistic. Life is a trip.

As I opened my mailbox today, I marveled at how the body can act so independently of what my mind was trying to tell it. I told myself not to get anxious or excited, but it was useless. My heart was racing even though I believe my mind was fairly ambivalent. Knowing the sympathetic nervous system, my pupils were probably wide and my breathing quick and shallow. The envelope was slim, but it felt hefty with more than one piece of paper. I peered through the address window and saw something that looked like a form. A part of me knew then that this must be an acceptance, or a wait list, because why would a rejection ask for more info? I opened it and scanned for the “Congratulations!” that was in the letter that offered the interview, but didn’t see it. There was a split-second of disappointment, until I started reading from the beginning. There in no-frills yet kind of somber (I thought) language was my acceptance. I found the language a little strange and couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I didn’t shout and scream with ecstasy or break out into laughter. It was the way it was in my dream… a little ambivalent, a little anticlimactic. In retrospect, I think I was in mild shock. I hadn’t let myself believe I would get in b/c of fear of crushing disappointment. I think I also became instantly anxious – about whether I got in by the skin on my teeth, whether the professors would wonder if they made a mistake a year from now, whether I’d be able to handle the work….I think I became overwhelmed with both relief and nervousness.

I felt like the acceptance had happened to someone close to me but not to me exactly. Maybe that’s an apt feeling – half of me wants to identify with being a nurse; the other half with being a writer. I’m hoping my two selves will get along.

During the past week I’ve had an intense motivation to Organize and follow through with things in my life – and I’ve been doing it each day, several times a day. The organizing has been both big and small: from throwing away pens that have run out of ink and moving the shredder to the front door to buying a filing cabinet and changing office to bedroom and bedroom to office, I’ve been having a hard time thinking of much else. The organizing has become more than that. I think I may understand the meaning of ‘deep cleanse’ now. I feel like I’ve never done this before to this extent.

It all began last Wednesday when I began obsessing over boxes. Storage boxes for files. Files for writing ideas and magazine clippings that inspire writing ideas. I realized it was ridiculous that after all these years I can’t find any article or quote or poem that I remember reading and thinking, yes, I need to remember this for my stories.

I began to evaluate other areas of my life that are just full of paper, and I wonder, where are those things? How can I build knowledge, history, meaning and inspiration if I can’t refer to anything I’ve learned about or come across in the past? I used to think I could rely on my memory to build one piece of knowledge or experience on another. I’m finally realizing the mind doesn’t work like that. It retains only bits and pieces, and sometimes very cryptically and vaguely. I can’t rely on memory. I need tangible evidence before me.

Over the past week, I sold some books. I rearranged all my books by genre. I dedicated a definitive section to my science books and a section right next to it to my non-fiction and fiction. This was definitely a declaration that I am accepting nursing’s place in my life next to writing. The science books are important to me, especially as I study pathophysiology and need to continuously refer to books from previous classes. I realized I enjoy building this library.

I feel like I’ve crossed some threshold where I’m able to take a little more control of my life and start to unravel the jumble of conflicts and multitude of interests in my mind.More metaphors: I feel like I’m starting to break through a blockade in my mind that had been holding me back, making me procrastinate, perhaps freezing me in fear of something. Maybe this is the first step to unblocking the ‘writer’s block.’ Perhaps it’s not just writer’s block – it’s also life’s block. I feel like that big black spirit in Spirited Away who became unplugged and released mounds and mounds of junk and sewage from inside of it. Suddenly he became who he truly was and floated happily away.

I might be suddenly obsessed with organizing my life because I’m trying to distract myself from my growing anxiety about UCSF as the date draws near. But I also feel the motivation and the unplugging have felt so real and have been so joyful that there must be more to this than just my mind’s clever way of passing time. The notion that the universe may be helping me to prepare for a new phase in my life is apt whether I’m accepted to school or not. Either way, after this week, my life is entering a new phase. Big changes are on the way this year. I want to be present and mindful and appreciative of each and every one of those moments.