Emotion

Today I may have experienced every emotion I can think of.

It was my last day as a nurse today. Well, I'll still have a nursing license and call myself a nurse, but it may have been the last shift I ever actually look after people. Directly. Many mixed emotions.

I approached this day with a lot of trepidation. People kept asking me if I was excited, but the truth is, I am not, I am apprehensive. I was feeling very comfortable in my job, confident that I knew what I was doing, or how to find out if I came across things I didn't know. I don't feel like that so much right now.

So the anxiety associated with this particular day set me up for a bit of a roller coaster from the start.

First off, I had trouble finding an outfit to wear which would mark the occasion appropriately. Once that hurdle was crossed, I set off for work, dropping Aimee at day care on the way. I paused in the parking lot and she hopped out, tossing "Bye, Mommy!" over her shoulder as she ran to the front door. She looked so small and so grown up all at the same time. So independent, but still so needful of parental support and guidance. Utterly typical of her age, I suppose. Anyway, I watched her trot off into the school and felt a melancholic tug in my gut, remembering when she was small and fat, innocent and full of wonder. As she entered safely into the school, I drove away, reflecting on her remarkable maturity and my feelings of parental guilt for not wanting to stay home with them to watch it happen first-hand. A feeling I have essentially come to terms with, but energy-sucking nonetheless.

So as I was driving along, I examined this feeling in my gut, and tried on the idea that emotions all feel physically the same, but their identifying tag is the only difference between guilt and anxiety and sadness. So to make myself feel better, I tried attaching a different label to my guilt/melancholy/anxiety. I tried pride. I decided I should be proud of Aimee's confidence, and the fact that she really is growing into a smart, industrious, resourceful girl. That thought lead me to think of other things I am proud of, like the fact that I drive a stick shift, and I am smart and educated, and my marriage is still happy after 11 years, and that I have managed to maintain my young adult weight despite a marriage, two pregnancies and the subsequent children, a full-time job, university courses, a hundred pee-wee hockey games, and some bad nutritional habits (thank you genetics). I am proud of what I do for a living, that I do important work,that I make a difference to people, and that I do it well enough to have earned the respect of my colleagues. There are a lot of things that I like about me, and the things I don't like, I am working on. I think that means I am mentally healthy.

By the time I got to work, I had reframed my earlier angst and was all set to see where the day went. I had quite a hilarious coffee break with my favourite colleagues, and settled in to save some lives. I saw a few patients, joked around with my doctor, assisted with a nurse-ish procedure. I enjoyed the feeling that I know what I'm doing, and tried to savour it, knowing there were only a few more hours of that likely to be experienced in the next few months.

At the end of the day, I returned to my desk to find a card and a gift from my doctor. The card had a very nice message from him, offering me congratulations and best wishes on the new job. I was touched. Of course he was nowhere to be found, when I went looking for him to give him thanks and a big hug, so I sent an email. Which was probably just as well, since I was feeling just a little tearful, leaving all that was familiar and comfortable, and seeing the evidence that I am well-liked and respected. A little despair. A lot of anxiety.

So I managed to keep it together and drove home, to my comfortable little house, with my loving and affectionate millionaire's family, and dinner almost on the table. Now, hours later, and after a chance to engage in my therapeutic rambling, I can list a very large number of acutely experienced emotions that I've been through today... anxious for the unknown, grief for the losses - my childrens' infancy, a job that I have enjoyed, sad at the death this week of a favourite patient, proud of my accomplishments, joy in the company of my friends, touched by the thoughfulness of my colleague, embarassed at the extra attention, unsure that I made the right decision, at loose ends, not sure if I made the reight decision, comfort in a well-known role, loved, liked, respected. I can't say it's every day I get to experience such a range. It was an interesting exercise to consciously observe my own mental and physical reactions to the events that happened throughout the day. And in the end, my observation that emotion is all the same physical sensation, no matter what its label, was accurate. It's how you spin it that makes it a good feeling or a bad feeling.

How's that for philosophy?

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Further to the last entry, I thought that I should make sure you knew that we didn't call the new puppy by Jack's suggestion, Asshole. We called her Jinx. It seems to fit.

And further to the cute things they say, I thought I would share a little gem that Jack came home with the other day. No longer the cute innocent little comments like calling the syrup in the bottom of the fruit cup "peaches water" like he did when he was two - this time, he solemnly informed us, "My friend says girls taste like chicken".

I asked him how his friend knew but didn't hear the answer for the roars of laughter coming from my own head. I thought I might offer him a taste of my arm, so he could confirm or deny his friend's assertion with first-hand knowledge, but thought the humour might be lost on him. It about made me pee my pants, though (weak bladder muscled being yet another legacy of the darlings). I love those moments - they really do make you feel good.

So I suppose that the theory that girls taste like chicken may remain untested in our family for now - probably for the best. I'll let you know the results of any scientific experiments, though.

Absence

A brief explanation of my disgracefully extended absence. Tonight is the first night, literally, in months, where I have had no pressing responsibilities which precluded a bit of writing for fun. So I will update you on my life since April.

About five minutes after I wrote the last entry, we got a puppy. So that took up a few months, wiping pee stains off the new carpet and getting up every 2 hours all night to let her out. It was just like having a human baby, except I didn't get stretch marks from this one. Oh, and it has a lot more hair than any of my other children. She is becoming a lot more civilized now, too. Unlike the other children, she's matured quickly. The humans seem to be developing into adults at a geological pace, when it comes to things like table manners and putting the toilet seat down, but at a lightning fast one when it comes to popular music and social networking websites. We can't expect innuendo to float subtly above their heads any more, and we can't spell things that we don't want them to know... come to think of it, even the dog knows how to spell w-a-l-k now.

So there was the puppy, who really has been good for the kids - the novelty still hasn't really worn off yet - they walk her daily with minimal whining. They are conscientious and thoughtful, at least when it comes to her. Of course they fight over who get to have her sleep in their bed, which I could do without.

Then there was the marathon. I ran the half marathon on Father's Day. I was five minutes slower than my goal time of two hours, but discovered something very important about myself that day. I have the physical fitness to run a stupidly long distance, but I lack the mental fitness. By mile 15, I had resolved any cognitive dissonance that my 2:05 pace was causing and no longer cared about my finishing time. In the end, I was reasonably proud of my time, but realize that had I the mental toughness necessary to accomplish something really hard (like, maybe parenting?) I will need to train that part of me as well. I really don't know how to do that but now it's on my list of things to work on. I am really not sure if I have the balls to carry on when the going gets tough. I guess I'm lucky that the biggest test so far has been a meaningless road race. My running partner wants to do the Great Canadian Death Race next summer - that might be another good training ground.

In between training the puppy, and training for the marathon, there were about a thousand mini-soccer games, two weeks of vacation wherein I landscaped the front yard (heavy labour, that. Looks great), and a job interview for an impressive new job, which I start Monday. I also took another course towards my Master's degree, with which I managed to maintain my perfect GPA, despite my deadbeat group project partners, whose work ethic and fixation on grades pale in comparison to my own anal retentive nature. Oh, and I read Harry Potter.

So all that, and despite a funky bleach blond haircut with vivid blue chunks in it, I got myself a new job. I have exactly two shifts left as a front-line nurse, and I fully expect that with my resignation from my current position, I will never go back to direct patient care. I confess to having mixed feelings about that. Never again will I have to track down a doc at 4:30 on a Friday for a narcotic prescription - a pet peeve to say the least (I know every job has one - the Subway Sandwich Artists hate when the tomatoes don't get sliced straight, and the mailman rages at every lazy sod who refuses to shovel the snow off his front steps - I fume when people don't pay attention to their medication needs until it is a MEDICAL EMERGENCY - not my fault but definitely my problem). However, I will probably never again give a little old lady a warm blanket to make her feel better. I have probably been thanked in an obituary for the last time. I'm pretty sure I will never again be able to sit down with someone who has a new scary diagnosis and reassure them that "people survive this all the time". Anyway, this is a much more intellectual job I'm moving to, it is a stepping stone to something major - and should be interesting to boot. I am having a bit of identity crisis, though. I will now join the ranks of people who "used to be a nurse". Although I will maintain my license, and could easily go back to nursing, I likely won't.

I will miss the white coat and the status it confers. I am proud to walk down the hall in that building knowing that everyone is aware that I have a legitimate reason for being there, that I provide an essential service. I will miss my colleagues, who often make it worth coming to work. I will miss some patients, and others I will forget tomorrow (if I'm being honest). I won't miss thirty phone calls a day, many of which are medical emergencies which I am responsible for managing with appropriate assessments and advice. There is far less potential that I could actually be responsible for killing someone in the new job. I will have an office, and a pager, both of which I acknowledge may become liabilities in the grand pro/con list. I am quite anxious. What if I hate it? I've given up all my seniority, not that it was much, and I am certainly qualified to go back - would I? Would I hate going back? Probably. I think what I might miss most of all is the feeling that I really know my job well and suddenly, I will be in a situation where I know next to nothing. Hey, maybe that's where the whole mental toughness thing might come in. I'd better re-read that one I wrote when I started this job. I think it will be a challenge.

Anyway, enough of my rambling - it does feel good to articulate my anxieties. Going to play monkey-in-the-middle with the kids and the dog, before the summer is over.