Friends, Donuts, and Dying...

I took Greyson out for donuts one morning last week before school.

I had coffee, he had milk. He had a donut, I had a box of munchkins.

Seems fair, right?

After we sat there for a bit, one of my best friends from Nursing School walked in.

We haven't seen each other in over a year, so it was great to randomly catch up! 

I'm sure if she didn't have somewhere to be and if I had been alone we could have talked for HOURS. There's so much to catch up on!

Our conversation brought up some emotions I've been feeling lately, and I was so glad for the reminder, as well as a feeling of camaraderie!

FIRST...friendships after motherhood

You know, when you're single you've got plenty of time for phone calls and drinks after work, and weekend road trips to see out-of-town besties. When you're in college you can catch up over coffee between classes or before you knock out a study session. But as a working mom (and most of my friends are wives as well) it is SO hard to maintain friendships. Or what we've grown to know as friendships.  What I've realized lately is that I still have several great friends who are only a phone call or coffee meet-up away. Although we may not be caught up on the current goings-on in each other's lives...our annual or bi-annual meet-ups are full of connecting and picking up right where we left off.  Can I just say how THANKFUL I am that God has blessed me with such friendships.

Many days I don't see myself as having many friends, or having a strong "social circle".  I do believe some of that is just me interpreting the lives of those I see around me into something that isn't true...but STILL. I've had feelings of jealousy over other's "Girls Groups" or friends who seem to balance their lives and maintain friendships where they catch up regularly, send cards, gifts, etc.

I just don't have it all together...BUT I do have some amazing girlfriends, even if we do have to catch up when we run into each other in town in our slept-in make up...dropping our kids off late to school. It's just this SEASON of life :)

SECONDLY...life as a nurse.

It was SO good to compare stories of workplace drama, scheduling nightmares, and patient loads. 

We first met in nursing school, and I'm a firm believer that our clinical group of 10 or so will ALWAYS know each other way more intimately than we ever desired to.

When you spend classes performing mock-exams on each other, and many hours studying for ridiculous quizzes and Skype-like meetings on weekends, after HOURS in clinicals and classes all week...you just KNOW each other. I cherish those memories, we all became nurses together. Through our first c-dif patient, to that scary day we walked in and realized we all had patient's on contact precautions...who needed their medications via PEG tube.

NIGHTMARE city!

Or that day our preceptors refused to have nursing students and we spent our day looking up medications and writing out drug charts (of medications I STILL look up!)

We've all moved on to careers in different specialties, but one thing is the same...We're NURSES. 

We share a bond through our profession that sometimes I think I'm walking through alone.

Don't get me wrong...I have amazing co-workers. But several of them have been doing this thing for years. Others have worked in different backgrounds or specialties before joining my ward. Or simply, they have their Master's Degree and I'm a lowly little Associate's Degree, diploma toting nurse. 

Talking with Megan made me realize that some days this profession is not all I dreamed it to be.

We NEVER anticipated the emotional component that is carried with us wherever we go, where some days we feel like happiness is non-existent, where we look at non-nurse friends like they are crazy when they complain. Because sometimes being a nurse makes you jaded.

You're faced with hardship ALL day long. So when you're friend complains about their husband's 12 hour work days and a long day with their kids, or how they have no money when they have a fresh manicure and food in the refrigerator...you want to smack them.

Or how you realize you know what it looks like when someone's about to die.

Or you can smell a diagnosis faster than the doctor can assess it.

Or how some days feel like you wipe butts and argue with doctors and run in circles.

Or how your job is your life, even when you walk out of the double doors, it chases you home.

It's normal. Somewhat. And I'm glad to know someone I started all this with has the same struggles and emotions that I do some days. It's just part of being a nurse, I suppose.

God knows, deep down in my heart I LOVE BEING A NURSE.

But somedays? I feel jaded. And grumpy. 

And I can usually snap myself out of it :) But now I know who else to call to vent!