no explanation...

you never get to know the answers to so many questions...

One of the reasons I have always been drawn to hard sciences is because I had this illusion that you got to know the why's. And there are some absolutes out there. A low serum potassium will send a patient into a heart dysrhythmia...but give 'em a big old horse pill of K and sure enough they get better! Yay science!

But mostly even doctors and nurses rely on best guesses, trial and error and intuition. Sure we sound confident when we talk about things - because that's our job. We are trained to be the calm in the storm - the buoy in the rough waters. And truth be told, you'll have two patients with identical symptoms, give them the same treatments, and one gets better and goes home to enjoy their family while the other guy crashes and dies.

What's the difference between those two patients? The doctors don't know. Ask too many questions and they'll fall back on statistics or empirical anecdotes but they don't *really* know. So what if the difference is hope? Or love? Or faith? Well the scientific method can't prove it - but we nurses have a hunch that hope matters. And though our job means telling the hard truth - we can also provide hope.

Tonight I came home from a 12-hour shift and was tucking my son into bed. He started crying. He was missing a close family friend who left town suddenly. Here I was listening to my 11-year-old ask some hard questions...none of which I had the answer to. Why did she leave? When would she come back? I could see his little broken heart pouring out in his tears and I wanted to comfort him, to fix it. But I couldn't explain away her absence...losing someone you love hurts like hell...even when you're 11. Or maybe even more so...

So my job was to be that calm in the storm for him. To lay down next to him and just be there while he wrestled with the very grown up reality of losing love. And I was mindful of that wondrous little piece of Pandora's box hiding in the corner after all the ills of the world spilled out...hope. I couldn't give him hope she would return to us - but hope for the future, and faith that more fun and frolic was awaiting him.

I am so grateful to have the chance to be strong for my son...and I desperately hope he is crafting some tools to weather life's storms. On a good day, I think I do a pretty decent job ;)

But then he escapes to dreams and I wish like hell I had someone looking out for me when my tears come.

Too bad you can't order hope on Amazon. Cause I would pay for some next-day shipping!!

love this....

love her voice! It was hard to find a version of the video that isn't all weird. So forgive the link to myspace. If I could sing like her I would sing this myself...

life without

I remember trying to work my forty hour weeks and still keep up with my two-year-old. I felt like I was underwater most days. Exhausted, happy and joyous, but exhausted. My sister slapped a diet coke in my hand and said "this is how you do baby!" And wow did that caffeine really help! Prior to that moment I was nearly vegan. And my idea of a sweet treat was barley malt sweetened graham crackers.

Those days are clearly long gone.

But now I have overdone it. Because when my little delicate body has too much caffeine, it apparently drops into a dysrhythmic state of affairs.

A heart that *should* be going all boom BOOM boom BOOM boom BOOM suddenly feels like more a slinky thrown down some stairs. booooom BOOOM BOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOM BBOooooooOOOOOOM. As if there is a weasel stuck inside trying to claw its way out through my pericardium. Alas, as with many good things, too much can kill you.

Saying goodbye to diet coke wasn't as tough as I thought it would be...maybe when you do something really hard for the right reasons it just feels better.

And I heard a rumor that there is some sort of clear liquid flowing from the faucet in my kitchen that is allegedly good for me. I might check it out later.

Here's hoping I get back to the BOOM boom BOOM boom soon.

blueprint....

ahhhhhhhhhh - I would do just about anything to feel good again.

not sure not sure...

It's so strange to me how my life unraveled. I had a one-year plan, a five-year plan, and was debt-free.

Solid in a long-term relationship, perched on the edge of completing my master's degree, pregnant and ready to begin the next adventure.

But then my girlfriend left me and my four-month pregnant self...

My perfectly planned life froze.

Fast forward a few depressing months and I began to plan again.

I moved across the country, settled for a job that paid me well and tried my best to figure out how to parent alone. Establishing an even keel isn't easy as a parent, much less a single mom - but I found my rhythm and remembered how much I loved life. Each day with my little man was better than the last...

Then another shitstorm hit. I lost my job, smashed my car and once again my special, special plans were at the bottom of a smoldering heap of yuck.

I always thought we get presented with challenges over and over for a reason. We are meant to learn to navigate through the trials with a bit more grace than humans usually show. And I seemed to be needing some practice in faith.

Faith is easy when things are smooth. It's nearly effortless to believe all is well when things are going your way. But to hold that faith when you feel so alone, so scared and totally frozen amid your destroyed plans? Well that takes a serious shift in perspective.

One of the tricks is to stay right in the moment. I can guarantee that most of the fear creeping in has to do with prior injustices or upcoming hurdles. But if you can keep your focus just on the second you are in, and feel safe and strong, well you can consider that a great second :)

Pretty soon you will find yourself stringing a few decent moments together...and then a few more...and then before you know it maybe you'll even have an entire day of feeling peace.

But the fear still comes of course.

And today I found myself wondering why in the hell I left an easy career as a software analyst to make half as much as a nurse. Nobody poops on software analysts.

But then I realized something...nursing has forced me to retrain my brain to zero in on the moment. When you are running around in the hospital with eight different patients and 20 things to do for each one you really learn about staying 100% in the present. If you actually planned out your entire shift and wrote down what you had to accomplish during your twelve hours you would run screaming out the front doors and just get a job at a coffee shop.

So here I sit again perched on the edge of big change...but this time? Without a plan. Don't think I have gone all buggy on you though! I have a general direction, some awesome goals, and even a wish or two - but I may finally be figuring out that I have wasted too much time and too much energy trying to control things that can't be controlled.

It's faith time people, and it feels a lot better than a five-year plan ;)