Spontaneous.
I am a spontaneous person I would say. I live for the moment. Like most human beings I know, I get up each morning with no plans for the rest of the day. This is how I went through life ever since I can remember. Challenges, I take them as it comes. Hiccups, I’ve always had a lot of those. Dreams, those too. They came hand in hand, I cannot tell which one from the other. I only know life is only good as it gets.
Or, hard as it gets.
Growing up, I was the youngest of five. That wasn’t too bad. I was the apple of everyone’s eyes. My mother’s heart, I supposed- or whatever’s left of it. We were a handful five. I was the bearer of everyone’s hand-me-downs. That’s a given. I never learned to say “Thank you “ for them. From books, to clothes, to games, to toys, to hobbies. Again, it was a given. That’s how I carried most stuff growing up. It was handed to me.
Even my dreams.
Our eldest is special, so he is exempted. But my eldest sister is a dentist, my brother is a doctor, my other sister is a lawyer, and I, the youngest will be a nurse. That wasn’t too bad, right? Except that, that’s the plan handed to me by the family. Fast forward to now, we did not end up exactly as planned but, at that time, all that has happened, was handed to us by life.
Life handed to us by our parents, from the life they lived, also handed to them from theirs. That was the pattern of life we are to follow. But nothing in life is permanent. If it has other plans for us, that’s where the chaos starts. One tries to hold on to the familiarity, the comfort it brought them. Just to keep from straying. You are lost without it. Your arms and limbs are cut off, a big part of you is gone. How do you put the pieces back together- the one that are still there?
I became a nurse as predicted. I did not stray from the path. It wasn’t my dream but I became it. Each day I woke up dreading the work ahead of me. I did not like sticking up a needle to someone’s vein to draw blood and miss it. To me, it is a rather big, big struggle- enormous, humongous- you name it - it is a big deal to me. Like, the sun. I always hated needles. Why did I became a nurse? That’s the big question, isn’t it?
It all has to do with my hands. My hands always gave me trouble. They never follow what I ask them to do. They were never stable enough. I was fifteen when I began my love-hate relationship with my hands. All I wanted was a steady hand salute to give to my officers on my junior year. I failed to do that. You can call it nerves. But I did it calm and by myself, it was still there. The tremors- I really hated those. I learned to live with it- but I still hated it. Anything to do with steady, I hate it with a vengeance.
That’s how I lived up to now.
That’s how nursing for me is. It was never my dream to be one. I hate that I could never be the perfect nurse. One that is steady. It is either a hit or miss. Life did play a big trick for me. I hated it because of what I cannot be as one. But there never was a day, or night I went home thinking I did not do enough to save my patient’s life. I went to bed and slept and woke up- faced another rough night ahead of me. I did this for many, many years. I did get the awards, the accolades and the medals my exceptional colleagues did. What I got was a flat “thank you” from my patients who survived a bad night. From doctors avoiding me from the hallways after I hunted them and woke them most nights for patient’s abnormal labs or vital signs. A grateful smile from my charge nurse for showing up when it’s needed. My colleagues for my smile and support when they needed it. This is how I survived nursing.
Life really isn’t handed out to us in a plate. What we knew before from how life was given to us may not always turn out to be our destination. Chances are, they will not be. One lesson I did learned though, was we live our life the best way we can.
I’ve yet learned to say thank you-
to my younger self for not giving up, in spite of the hiccups.
To my hands, for keeping it steady to my nursing years.
To nursing, for being my bread and butter to my table and soul.
To my current self, for dreaming again.
To my family, for their love and support.
To my readers and Substacks, for this space,
I can breathe.
To life,
Thank you.