left the door open today for one of my favorite patients to work their way in...."doin ok" I asked. "if I were, you wouldn't be here" He said it smiling. He was, of course, right..... Sometimes truth jerks you awake.... Sometime you hope that a visit will be social and pleasant. Sometimes, when you become friends with the people you care for- it is hard to remember that you are the nurse and they.... they are the patient..... that their time here is limited.... that there is unfinished business to be attended to... that there are very real fears, and unspoken thought. there is pain and there is boredom The waiting.....
sometimes it is hard not to acknowledge- not to understand in a very basic, very internal, very unacknowledged level that this will someday be us.... someday be me...... that "there but for the grace of God go I"l
I might have shoved this in- buried it if my son's girlfriend had not observed "you look tired" and suddenly- I was.. tired and lonely and discouraged.... Tired of other people's pain. Wishing for a job that served cones or changed tires.....I could have worked in a preschool and given/received hugs and sticky fingers all day..... Or a park- controlling the rides and watching the people go around and around.
Instead I try to hug myself- to hold it together-to hold it in.... I serve nothing mundane- nothing that is not fraught with life.... and death.... decisions. Every decision is monumental, and though I often feel that I spend my life watching people go round and round- there is always a point where the ride stops and stops abruptly - often throwing people from their appointed seats into a netherworld they did not chose...
sometimes you let yourself feel a little to much.... get a little to close... identify a bit more than is comfortable.... sometimes the shield goes down..... soemtimes, it hurts like hell....
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