September 2, 2020
Wrapping my head around it all. That it’s over, finally over, that I don’t want it anymore. Fully aware of how bad and toxic it’s been for me and my children. My heart hurts at how much time has been wasted. At how I didn’t care about anything but my own pain. I’m ashamed of myself for letting someone come between me and my kids. Ashamed for letting myself be consumed with him to the point that I ignored everything else. Generally feeling very weak mentally. Ashamed I couldn’t see it and mad I couldn’t get out sooner. It’s hard to let go even when I’m the one letting go. I was sending him all kinds of texts yesterday—angry and sad and goodbye. All over the damn place. He was texting me too it’s not like I sent them out of nowhere. I’m sad it ended this way and I’m second guessing myself for not trying couple’s therapy, but I’m holding on to nothing. Nothing but his empty promises to change. Of him dangling the things I want in front of my face and making me jump through fucking hoops to get them. I won’t miss trying to be perfect for him all the fucking time. To look and act perfect. To say the right words that stroke his ego. Trying to gain his love. This is not love and I know this is not love. Love can be ugly and imperfect and someone who loves you can still be devoted to you. He’s devoted to himself. And I know all this deep down inside. I know even if he’s not actually a narcissist that he’s selfish and he didn’t treat me well. I asked him a question the other day and he went off like how dare I ask him a question when I don’t see or hear from him for weeks? So how the fuck do I sit here and be sad? I would love to know, I really would. He let his family think I was some evil bitch that didn’t care if I infected them with the corona virus. And he is never ever there for me. Not when it counted.
First things first, don’t ever date, much less marry, a salesman unless of course that is you wish to be sold your own big fat lie.
Second, when I say my publication, HCT: Heal Cure Treat, is all about me, I mean it is truly all about me.
Thirdly, the truth is that once upon a time, I would have given the man in my September 2, 2020 journal entry, my goddamn kidney if he asked me for it.
Big Sigh, again it’s ugh blah to read this entry and I will keep this one brief. Everyone wants to know what it was like to work through a pandemic and well this is what it was like to work through a pandemic, with the added bonus of your new husband stomping out on Valentine’s Day 2020. This is also fine, again February 14th is just a day on the calendar for me and I feel this way about all of the holidays most people lose their shit over. I remember every detail about my drive home from work that day, the call I received from my sister, the call I placed to my husband after and no, I won’t be sharing those details here.
My husband, let’s call him Cain because he was left handed and sort of evil, was a very quiet man. He rarely raised his voice to anyone, least of all me, always said let kids be kids, and taught me how to lift free weights like an old school mother. He somewhat sensed my unwillingness to be anything less than perfect in the gym and used to tell me to make the ugly face and take it out on the weights.
My second husband never even called me a single name until one of our very last text message conversations which came almost 2 years later.
Listen I am a self-proclaimed bitch, I take no offense to the word whatsoever, to me bitch is a word for wolf mother. I’m also not an empath and will not ever allow myself to be labeled as anything other than human ever again.
No one labeled me more than I labeled myself. Also I will never see or speak to Cain again if I can help it and I can.
Empathy is a long held tenet of my chosen profession. Please note, I said I don’t have a victim mentality, never once said I wasn’t a victim, never said I didn’t feel personally victimized by my profession, long before 2020.
Silence is almost always golden, a highly effective sentence if you ask me. The masses are free to believe whatever they choose to believe about me, about single mothers and about wild and crazy angelic nurses, victims and villains.
There’s a big if here for me though. If I did not also have the ability to put myself in the shoes of the human either standing there in front of me or lying in the hospital bed beneath me, right before my very eyes, I also would not be able to do what I do.
That’s the golden ticket. That’s why I don’t try to explain it anymore. You can’t really ever explain a calling to those who’ve never received a call.
When I find I’ve lost my ability to empathize with my patients or their families, it will be time for me to bow out gracefully. I have left, un-gracefully a few times, only to return a few times over the years. I did it again in 2021 actually and focused on unofficially mentoring the Baby Nurses who graduated in 2020 and received a little baptism by fire. There’s nothing to prove here, I simply work in what is a highly-specialized niche of Critical-Care Nursing and can’t make even close to what I make doing anything else I don’t even love half as much as I love Nursing.
You do not get to tell me who I am.
I have oodles of empathy for my patients and their families. I’m just usually very cranky when I feel overly hungry or come home to a messy house. Ever grateful for the food and always grateful for the mess though.
Trauma ICU, one of the most effective diet and intermittent fasting plans on the planet. It was actually nothing compared to working in Neurosurgical ICU, which I did for about 5 years. Simply look how skinny I managed to get working in that environment, one which made the Trauma ICU look like taking a stroll through a nice safe park. It makes me feel physically ill to look at this photo, even though I thought I was so happy being skinny back then and everyone complimented my unintentional weight loss.
Can you see me gritting my teeth?
Truth be told I was always very curvy, more of me to love as Nanny Shirley liked to say, but I certainly never embraced those curves as a child who reached teenager in 1990’s America.
How come no one noticed that I became thin as a rail when I started working as a nurse and also managed to pop out my third kid in a five year time span? Still smoked a pack a day despite the fact cigarettes have long been disproven to be an effective weight loss supplement?
That’s the million dollar question. (Mom) This is also the year my parents decided to move to Delaware to follow my little sister and the events that followed that particular move are another full volume dramedy. Again, this is me, my lens and how I view the world. If the answers aren’t coming to me then I know I need to start asking myself different questions.
Facts.
In 2020 for the first time in years, I stayed home when I wanted to go out. I couldn’t hide in a yoga class, or at a sip and paint, or get lost in someone’s arms. Trust me, I had quite the roster of willing and able men who always responded to my texts, in 30 minutes or less. At this point, I’d been physically separated from my absent husband for months; and it was my choice not to let him move back in to my house.
More facts.
The Nurse does always appreciate a Rapid Response by the way.
Anyway my therapist at the time, one of many great ones over the years, God love them all because I know I burned their ears more than a few times, especially in the years that followed my first divorce. It does takes one to know one and remember I am also a healthcare professional, I don’t just play one on TV.
I absolutely recognize a pause in which a professional uses to contemplate the next sentence that’s going to come out of their mouth.
My therapist was this fantastic older woman named Kathy. I do always appreciate a rebellious sort of Baby Boomer mentality, but usually only when it’s not coming from my own mother. Kathy’s office was all light and love, altars, talisman and I loved everything about the merger and holistic nature of her practice. She simply seemed consumed with her own fears surrounding the pandemic, I don’t know why because I was the patient in this scenario, but I understood her concern let’s put it that way. This was upsetting to me because she’d kind of been my North Star, constantly guiding me through the dark, when I couldn’t be in the bar if you know what I mean.
So here we go, hold onto your pencils.
Do yourself a favor and learn something new about yourself today: If this long-time Type A, overachieving eldest daughter, Nursing School Class president, multi-award winning Nurse, Super Mom, —reformed know-it-all and recovering minimalist, can learn some new tricks?
Well so can you.
Welcome Back to School. By the way I’m not your teacher. I outed my mother, and released my last remnants of shame when I did. The truth will always set you free after it’s done pissing you off.
It’s not what you think, Debbie’s biggest fear is that people will read this and think she’s a terrible mother. My mother is a mother. Just like all mothers she is human and had a lot on her plate when I was growing up. I know she’ll forgive me for airing (some) of her dirty laundry, she always does because that’s what mothers do in my family.
My mother just doesn’t seem to understand how much I absolutely love her, so I thought 💡, let me show her there’s nothing to fear here.
Words are powerful and words are also meaningless without action and a little intent.
Happy Labor Day Debbie. I love you. Thanks for teaching me not to sit around and be sad, for telling me to get up when I was down. For teaching me I had the power to do something. Thanks for forcing me to go to church when I didn’t want to go to church. Thanks for sending me to Baptist Camp Lebanon a few summers, which will always be one of the highlights of my life.
Please know I have spent a lot of my Sundays watching church on TV and talking scripture with my patients who want to do those things, and I thought of you every time I did.
Thanks for taking me for my very first tattoo, now an ugly cross on my ankle that I will never remove.
Finally, thank you for teaching me to always say thank you to every last troop that has ever crossed my path.
Nope not sorry at all for that one.
This we always do in honor of your father and my grandfather, every single time. I certainly know who to thank for my freedom and success. Sorry I just can’t sugarcoat it.
Thanks mommy. 🩷 💚
You had me laughing and all up in my feelings!! Bravo!!
Oh my. I second what Caroline said. All up in my feelings, with some laughter thrown in! Life is all about learning, humility and getting to a place where we give people permission to misunderstand us. Whatever right? Know thyself! Loving your stories and you! ox