five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

My alma mater ejected its freshest crop of seniors last weekend, which means I have been a real person in the eyes of the world for a year now. I feel stuck in one of those weird time warps where somehow eons have passed without any time passing at all. As a gut reaction, I wonder what I really accomplished this year. Did I make any major contributions to science? Did I change any lives? Did I even change my own? For my compulsive side, I need to lay it all out for you. Ok, mostly for me.

*Passed NCLEX.

*Became a registered nurse in 2 states.

*Started a career.

*Paid a lot of taxes.

*Spent a fortune on gas.

*Saved a bit of money.

*Transitioned from graduate nurse to staff nurse.

*Was a bridesmaid in the weddings of 2 of my very best friends.

*Watched 2 and soon to be 3 people who I am close to move far, far away.

*Celebrated 3 21st birthdays.

*Began and ended an important relationship.

*Visited my college town 4 times.

*Became a Life Teen core member and got close to the kids in my youth group.

*Moved with my parents to a new home.

*Moved out of my parents' home.

*Decorated my own home.

*Paid my first bills.

*Flew to New York, Chicago, and Phoenix.

*Saw 3 productions on Broadway.

*Road tripped to Texas, Illinois, Michigan, and all over Missouri.

*Sang at 1 college tournament basketball game, 2 weddings, and 3 funerals.

*Learned more than I can ever format into a list about babies, breathing patterns, sputum, IV fluids, placating parents, pain relief, handling impossible situations, time management, storage of gasoline in a home, how to live with someone new, indications for calling my landlady, when to sleep for a night shift, tricks for saving my hard-earned money, when it is worth it to splurge, knowing what I can and cannot do, what my vocation means to me right now, how much Jesus truly loves me, and what things are really the most important.

...I'm tired.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Navigation System

It's funny how an unfamiliar area can become known, but there's no way to undo that. Once a place becomes meaningful, that meaning sticks. For five months I drove the same route to work, not noticing or caring about the houses I was driving by or the places to eat. It was just foreign territory at the end of my 40-minute commute. Then I met him, and it turned out he lives along my thrice-weekly drive. Right in the middle of that neighborhood where I thought nobody really lived, the place that used to mean nothing. Now I can't get to work without experiencing the memories. There's that incredible Italian restaurant where he took me for our first real date. There's the gas station we trekked to for milk and beer on a snow day. And there goes the street where he lives. The destination that at first made me full of nerve endings, all tension and excitement, then comfortably familiar - knowing after a long night shift he would be there with oatmeal and a warm, sleepy smile.

I keep passing the Chipotle where I wish I didn't know his order by heart.
And the restaurant where we broke up over breakfast.

I removed his house from my favorites on my TomTom. I never needed to save it in the first place because after I went there the first time, a map was drawn on my brain in indelible ink. Deleting an icon on a 4.3-inch screen didn't do me much good. I never realized my sharp memory for details until they were all ones I wanted to forget. How is it even useful to remember what road we were on when he told me my brakes needed to be checked out? But I know why I remember it - because I thought it meant that he cared about my safety. I learned in 7th grade life science that the brain chooses to save memories that have some significance attached, and tosses the rest. So as long as I find it significant, I will always think about my brakes when I cross the intersection of College and Grant.

My college physiology courses dove deeper: it is the hippocampus where both long-term memories and cognitive maps for navigation are formed. So ultimately, science rules: it is impossible to separate emotional memories from spatial memory. I can't expect College Boulevard to eventually transform back into the meaningless blur it once was at 45 miles per hour.

All I can hope for is that with time, the feelings that seep out of the too-familiar buildings into my car, my heart, will numb. Because I know the memories are there to stay. Besides, if I really wanted to avoid those altogether, I would just take the highway.

1900-0730

Oh, dearest bloggers and blalkers (blog-stalkers...think it'll catch on?). It's been so long. Work has a way of filling up my time (perhaps why it's called a full-time job) and sapping me of creative impulses. My impulses consist more of obsessively checking an iffy IV because last shift a kid yanked hers out, or that nagging feeling that tells me something is wrong with a baby's breathing that I can't quite put a name to, or just remembering to give meds and take vitals. These are impulses that pay me adequately but aren't that interesting to blog about.

So here is a topic that many non-medical personnel seem to find fascinating, thus the name of this post: the night shift (cue Inception music). Yes, I sleep during the day. Ideally from 9 am to 5 pm. And yes, I eat lunch in the middle of the night. Sometime between 1 am and 3 am. Despite these oddities (or perhaps because of them), I cannot even tell you how pleased I am to work nights. Mornings are a horrible time for me, so it's very pleasurable to be getting into my covers when the rest of the world is getting out of theirs. I have no trouble whatsoever sleeping during the day. I absolutely love the other night shift girls at work. And my patients are usually asleep for over half of my shift. On slow nights I get to read a lot. I see other staff members paying bills, going through their mail, doing online shopping. Because nights are typically slower than days, the pace for learning is ideal. I have time to hone my skills and learn how to do things right. I have become quite the expert at tiptoeing around (nearly) soundlessly to avoid waking sleeping babies and doing vitals, hanging meds, fidgeting with IVs etc in almost total darkness, just by the light of CR/sat monitors and IV machine displays.

A few inconveniences exist on the night shift, of course. My body is easily confused and I've found myself lying in bed fully awake around 4 am on my nights off. Getting up before noon is exceedingly difficult and on my days off I can't really plan on doing anything in the morning. My metabolism is also confounded and I can't for the life of me eat on any kind of schedule. There are times when I can literally go all day without a bite to eat and other times when I feel like death if I'm not ingesting something at least every hour. I find it troublesome to schedule doctor's appointments and run errands to places that aren't open 24 hours, especially the gym. Good thing my work keeps me active or I'd be morbidly obese by now. I've actually been losing weight as I slip more and more into a semi-permanent night shift schedule because eating is such a bother and I'm hungry at such inappropriate times. And, the most irksome aspect of my nocturnivity of late is that I spend quite a bit of time (but would like to spend much more) with someone who keeps a relatively normal schedule. I feel like I'm always coming or going when I see him. But we are working through it :)

I feel like all I blog about is work so here's a sound bite about my time off - the Sunday nights that I'm off I get to spend time with the most incredible teenagers at Life Teen (youth group). I still don't know everyone because I can only see them about once a month but I'm getting there, and the ones I'm getting to know are just mind-blowingly awesome. I hope I am contributing to their lives half as much as they contribute to mine. Catholic kids on fire for Jesus...these ones are gonna change the world. In fact, they already are...and it is so exciting to watch.

my UN-academic fall

It's still weird and amazing not being in school/studying/writing papers.

Since my last post, I've worked 2 weeks as a straight-up nurse...no more orientation. I had a preceptor who is an excellent nurse and a very good teacher, but it was lovely to "graduate." I was sailing through my last few weeks on orientation, a little nervous but mostly excited to fly solo. I was anticipating stress from not knowing all the answers and feeling unprepared to make decisions, but very willing to ask my experienced co-workers for help.

I didn't, couldn't anticipate what the burden of responsibility, SOLE responsibility, would feel like. I am the final authority now and what I do and do not do to my patients has lasting consequences. The stress is palpable. I have to consciously choose positive moments to focus on to propel me forward. The picture a little boy colored for me. Getting a WOW card from a patient's mother about the excellent care her baby received. Otherwise, I would drown in everything that's less than perfect. It's time management, trying to be in 3 places at once, that is just out of my grasp. I can be 1 patient's excellent nurse, but add the standard 2 and then all my kiddos get only 1/3 of me. I have to start IV fluids on 1 baby while thinking of my other baby's fever and wondering how my asthmatic kid is breathing. I know I can be good at this, maybe great at this, but it's frustrating seeing the long, long path ahead.

The decision-making part, though? Kind of a rush. When my train of thought ends at, "well, I'm the nurse, so I guess this is my call," I get a little bit excited. I'm sure that will wear off, as all novelties do, but in the meantime, I do have to be grateful to Truman for building the foundation for some good ole critical thinking skillzzzzzzz. Or maybe I need to give myself more credit - I could have had those in the first place.

This month, all I did was work and travel:

• 2 Kirksville weekends.
• 2 Homecomings (Truman & Mizzou).
• 2 13-hour road trips.
• 2 times my ID was lost and relocated.
• 1 wedding (Kristina, one of my best friends from college).
• 1 unbelievable Tiger victory over #1 OU.
• 1 trip to Chicago booked for December ($60 round-trip airfare? Yes, please).
• 1 Halloween without a costume (working, which is a tragedy because I was gonna be Snooki).

life insurance and 24-gauge needles

Do I feel settled? The question was posed to me tonight by a friend who is weeks away from moving to New York to become a star (and really, she will be). It's interesting to compare our lives. We graduated from the same high school, and we both graduated from college this year. And we are both beginning our careers this year, but my beginning could also feel like an end. I do in fact have full-time status, benefits, and a whole bunch of new scrubs. I work 1 weekend a month and 2 holidays a year. I pack a lunch in the evening before leaving the house and have the windows in my room blocked off with pillows so I can sleep during the day. I spent my first paycheck on new tires.

But settled? No. My life is still changing too much to feel settled, and I like it that way. There are still so many places for me to go, figuratively and literally. I'm not going to feel settled at work for a long time, I know that for sure. I'm very much back in the student role, which I both appreciate and loathe. Wearing the big blue "RN" badge is dangerously empowering...I can't wait to do things my own way, but there's way too much I don't know.

I did start an IV on a 3-week-old baby girl the other day, though. It was an awkward mess coming out of her tiny foot, but...it flushed and it stayed. I love the babies (even when they hate me for sticking them with needles).

Pulmonary function (or lack thereof)

I could never sing for a living. Too much can go wrong with a voice. Instrumentalists must have it so much easier. It doesn't matter what they eat or drink, if they have allergies, if they have sinus problems, what drugs they take, or really if they just wake up wrong. They can still play. Professional and student vocalists, I do not envy you. I'm not appreciating this panicky frustration related to my uncooperative vocal cords. I'm singing for a wedding later today, a random church gig, trying to ignore the random summer cold I got this week. Not only am I congested, I'm wheezing, which is decreasing my respiratory reserve for sure, and this dry cough is wreaking havoc on my chest voice. Getting sick in July is absurd.

This is reminding me of the time last spring when I was doing Jekyll & Hyde and I was singing at like 50% capacity, if that, which just did not fly. Emma has to sing a high C. I had been battling a dry cough for months, and I had NO vocal endurance. The steroid inhaler I was prescribed cleared it right up, but my voice was left out to dry (literally). Continuing to cough wore my voice down ragged, but curing the cough left me with this wimpy little voice that crackled in my lower register, and my mixed register just didn't exist. It ended up that all I had to do was get back on my allergy medication, which didn't affect my voice at all. An amazing discovery, and just in time.

Today, however, I just have to push fluids and hope my 10 hours of sleep last night worked some magic. Probably the most important piece is Schubert's "Ave Maria," and that sounds fine because it's completely in my mixed/upper register...the other songs are not quite up to my usual standards, but listen-able. What the bride doesn't know doesn't hurt her, I suppose.

one hand, one heart

*The pictures and spacing got reeeally screwy :(

Last weekend I had the amazing honor of being a bridesmaid in Kelsey & Josh Hoyt's wedding. Kelsey is one of my very best friends and we suffered through the hells of the Truman nursing program together. I went to Jacksonville, IL really only knowing her. I had met most of her bridesmaids but hadn't spent significant amounts of time with any of them. By the time I left, however, I had been welcomed into their group and I felt like I'd been good friends with these five girls and one guy (Kelsey's Man of Honor) for years! It was a crazy fantastic weekend and I have to share the highlights...these will have to be in chronological order because there's no way I could rank them.

1. Audrey and Sandy trying, and mostly failing miserably (but hilariously) to inflate some adultballoons, let's say, in my car on the highway between St. Louis and Springfield.

2. Pulling up to the hotel, honking at the girls inside to no avail, and earning glares from hotel employees and patrons as I parked my car obnoxiously and left it there.

3. The super cute bachelorette party shirts that labeled us as a pack (wolfpack, if you will?) and earned us stuff while we were out on the town like free champagne and shots (awesome) and extra attention from a group of guys claiming to be a bachelor party (awkward).

4. The certain traffic item that Audrey and I acquired after the bachelorette debauchery had turned in for the night and left as a gift outside the bridal suite after the wedding.

5. The impeccable hosting of the Mason family. Delores and Andy Mason are absolutely delightful people. We were treated to a bridesmaid luncheon at a tea room before the rehearsal and it was just what all of us needed.

6. The unwitting dirty remarks made repeatedly by the poor, hopefully ignorant pastor during the rehearsal (and subsequently the wedding). The wedding party was dying trying to hold ourselves together.

7. The fun table at the rehearsal dinner. Most of the bridesmaids were at a table with the ushers, and then towards the end Kelsey and Josh joined us and things got really out of hand, helped I'm sure by the excellent open bar. Especially comments verbalized in planning the activities accompanying the garter toss.

8. Trying to find Walmart with Audrey after the rehearsal dinner. Probably the two people you'd pick dead last for your driving geography team.

9. Girl time before the wedding, both at the hair salon and in the church basement.

10. The fact that most of the bridal party was in tears throughout the ENTIRE wedding ceremony because it was so beautiful and we were so happy. Seriously, my eyes were welled up by the time Kelsey got to the end of the aisle and were dripping after Josh recited his vows. Looking at Kelsey's dad tore me up, too. It was absolutely perfect and gorgeous. Seeing one of my dearest friends' every dream come true was such a great feeling...I was high on it the rest of the night!

11. The baller super stretch Hummer limo that transported the wedding party to the reception! The weekend had been a little stressful up until then (way more for Kelsey than anyone else, I'm sure) but I felt like we could finally relax. Popping open the several bottles of champagne helped!

12. The VIP entrances made by the wedding party at the reception. There was like basketball crowd pumping music playing and the DJ announced everyone's name, and we came in with our partner from walking down the aisle. Saed made a last-second decision for us to do a simple dance move that the crowd loved.

13. Sitting at the head table at the breathtaking reception. There were hundreds of candles, intricate centerpieces that all looked perfect, and so many happy people. Oh, and drinking beer out of champagne flutes...keepin' it classy.

14. Kelsey's dad's welcome toast made everyone cry all over again, and included a bottle of champagne saved from their own wedding back in 1983.

15. Instead of pulling off Kelsey's garter in a neat, orderly fashion, the bridesmaids set up Kelsey's chair to have an assortment of objects underneath for Josh to seemingly pull out from under her voluminous skirts before finally reaching the garter. The DJ kinda hated on this but everyone else loved it. Also, Josh tried to flick the garter but it landed right behind him, and Man of Honor Ben leapt out on the dance floor to grab it before anyone else could even move.

16. Gettin wild on the dance floor the WHOLE night. The slightly drunk bridesmaids kicked off the party, of course, just like we did 2 nights prior at the bachelorette party. The bride danced her little butt off, too.

17. when the bridal party circled up at the end of the amazing night and vowed to repeat the experience as closely as possible every year on june 27th, if not more frequently.

18. my "drive of shame" across illinois and missouri the day after everything...after about 3 hours of sleep, the trip taking about 8 hours total including meals and a nap in a shaded corner of a bob evans parking lot in columbia...still wearing my makeup from the night before with my sprayed and curled hair in shambles. ALL WORTH IT!