Over the years I’ve developed my own stand-up routine. On each and every shift, I perform it for my patients and their visitors. It’s redundant and kind of boring, but it’s the only part of my job that is.
You’re not afraid of a little prick are you?
I say with a curious pout as I stand there, needle in hand and bat my eyelashes.
They all say I’m so sweet, an angel in the flesh, and I laugh when they don’t feel a thing. No it’s not nice to laugh, therefore I cackle. I’m always quick to say I have not one, but two ex-husbands who would disagree with this crazy notion of me being a sweet angel. It is guaranteed to always get a chuckle. Visitors offer to bring me coffee and I always tell them I like my coffee hot and strong, with the consistency of a fine motor oil. Let them know I’m sweet enough without any sugar.
The Trauma ICU is this weird place where I quickly move back and forth between my masculine and feminine energy. My feminine side wipes away tears and smooths foreheads, while my masculine side focuses more on equipment and the savageness of it all. I wish more men would join the nursing profession because I think they’d enjoy it. It works for me and I do wish people on the internet would stop trying to sell me their pricey brands of feminism. About as much as I wish others would stop assuming I hate men. I am loyal as fuck to the men who have shown up for me. So loyal that I make not a single mention of any of them here. It’s just a very short list is all, and the rest— well the rest made their beds. I know where my true loyalty lies and that is only to myself and my children.
Yes I am my own brand of feminine, and this confuses the shit out of my kids. I love men who live up to my ideal of savage yet sweet. You know the kind of men who instinctively walk on the street side, occasionally feather my forehead with some much needed soft kisses and would remove my stuck tampon with their teeth. I want what I want and by the way that’s one of those Tik Tok Challenges used to test a boyfriend, the emphasis there is on the boy. It can be found with let’s pretend girls are stupid and don’t know it doesn’t cost $200 to put “premium air” in our tires.
Lately I’ve been feeling off my game. I’ve been off the hot yoga for a while now and have even abandoned meditation and gasp, the crystals. It shows in my tone and in my writing which is my preferred method of communication. My mouth is too fast to keep up with my brain, maybe that’s what some men love about me. Last year I worked with an intuitive financial life coach to do some much needed money healing. I couldn’t tell you what she did, only that I gave her a ton of money and haven’t been on a Target shopping spree since February. I have no regrets, I never do and her best advice was to tell me to remember to always listen to my body.
Every day now and multiple times throughout each day, I stop and ask myself what is it that I need?
Lately I’ve been smoking actual cigarettes again. Yes I’m aware it’s bad for me, leave me alone. I can’t put my finger on why. Is it the angsty writer I’ve become or am I clinging to this remnant of old ways? The little 12 year old girl who stood on a playground and smoked a red Marlboro with her 10 year old cousin. The cousin that taught me how to inhale exhale and was brutally murdered ten years ago by a man she met on the internet.
July 3rd was her birthday and I fucking forgot her birthday. Forgot how we once used to curl each other's hair and dance all night. How we’d stop at the McDonald’s on Cass Street late at night without an ounce of fear, we were street smart girls who knew the rules of the city. Remembered how she brought a stripper to my home bridal shower and I wanted to kill her myself until I watched Nanny Shirley smile as she spooned heaps of macaroni salad into her mouth with a man’s balls swinging in her face.
It’s summer. Macaroni salad always reminds me of summer. Summer in the Trauma ICU is well a little intense. There’s the usual tomfoolery, but add the motorcycles, the swimming and oh please, let’s add the fireworks. At least the college kids are back home terrorizing some other city with their choices, I know my own kids sure are. It’s summer and we’re all hot and bothered, but some of us do get up for work at 0445.
Indeed summer is the busiest season of all, so let’s also add a fresh crop of med students into the mix. Whoever came up with that idea should be tarred and feathered, maybe I’d like to drag them through the streets. Once upon a time I could be a nasty nurse who liked to chew up and spit out students for sport, but these days I infuse the unit mostly with my mommy energy. Everyone loses if these kids don’t learn how to succeed in this place that is nothing like the textbook.
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror. I chose to be vulnerable when I published my first story about 2020 with raw honesty. I don’t regret it, but lately it’s felt painful to relive it. It’s nice to be seen even if I will always brace myself for the worst case scenario at all times. I’m also aware of my many job hazards now and notice I didn’t call it the pandemic, I called it 2020. I have reframed it to process what was the best and worst year of my life. A year that also happened to contain tremendous volumes of love and clarity.
In 2021 I did something I never thought I’d do and I walked out of the ICU with my head hung low. I was filled with regret and never thought I’d return to what is my true love. I spent the next two years working in the aptly named recovery room. It was great and I made a lot of friends and money, but truth be told I was so bored. I missed the familiar rush of survival and speaking my native love language. So yeah I went back to the front lines to fight the never ending battle for mortality. I love the current of energy that moves through the ICU like a bolt of indiscriminate lightning. I love the tidal waves of anticipatory grief that always show how much love exists in this cruel world.
I know my words have the power to to make or break someone’s heart. I try to use this power wisely, but I’d been lying if I said I have always used my powers for good. I’m sure there are a few men who wish they never met me and in the middle of the night, the feeling is sometimes mutual.
Recently I went to the gym for the first time in almost a year. A vacation threw me off balance, I stopped flowing all damn day, and for now I have ditched my yoga practice. It took me forever to get my gym bag together and I couldn’t find my headphones. I cannot ever enter a crowded space without headphones on. I need them to block out the extraneous noise and I won’t even try anymore to workout without them. I also can’t stand to be in any store with loud buzzers and intercoms so thankfully I am able to do most of my shopping online. It’s good, it allows me more time for the beach.
The gym is a cheap one in a slightly shady part of the city I used to work in. Homeless people sleep at the entrance, another man is always there pumping ridiculously heavy iron wearing a Spiderman or dragon costume. There is what I presume to be a pimp who sometimes walks around with three older women wearing unitards. He eats Captain Crunch from a porcelain bowl using one of his own spoons and supervises their workout. I don’t ever bring my silverware to work because I know I’d lose it and I marvel over his ability. There are tears tattooed on cheeks, full memorials etched on biceps and Maseratis parked on the sidewalk. No one asks any questions here, but they all know me from the hospital. Oh how these bold women let the world see every tiger striped stretch mark, their kangaroo pouches and identifying facial marks. I have my scars, but I always conceal them. I don’t complain, I paralyze the muscle on my chin every few months until the scar slides under my jaw. I also don’t ride on the back of motorcycles much anymore and never talk about the men who gave me rides.
I wonder if any of those sweet and unscarred girls who don’t belong there are avoiding their ex too. I wonder if he’s at the nicer gym across town. My ex used to hate this gym, and always said it was too cold for him. Used to accuse me of sleeping with anyone I said good morning to. It is cold as ice, but it’s one of the only places besides my couch where I truly feel safe.
I stopped at the front desk to cancel my deluxe membership. Behind me a man was trying to talk his way in, said he was passing through and it was his last day in town. It sounded like someone had been letting him in all week, but the kid at the desk didn’t get what he was trying to insinuate. I told the kid to let him in under my still active plan that included a guest because their interaction pained me and I had the simple power to stop it. The man smirked, was satisfied and thanked me, but didn’t make a big deal about it. I didn’t need him to. He said this was his hometown and that’s what we do here, we look out for each other. It’s not my hometown, but here it sure is us against the world.
It was late morning and no one recognized me. It was hard enough to walk in there and my timing was intentional. Not that anyone would care, people disappear all the time from this gym, usually get locked up for 30-90 and come back leaner and meaner than ever. I walked into the locker room, looked at the scale and remembered how much I used to hate myself, how I never once was happy with whatever number I saw. This time last year I’d exchange 5:00 am selfies with the former boyfriend who lived in New York. I opened the door to the locker and wondered if he holds the new girl with the long black hair for five minutes before retreating to the far side of the bed for the duration of the night. Oh I sure know why I like the sleeping hand of Hot Dad lightly draped across my throat all night long. It took him less than a month to give me this primal protection I crave. Simply put, I will always trust my gut and I haven’t slept this good in years. With my eyes down and jaw clipped tight, I picked the weights up and let it all go again. For 20 years, I’ve watched your blood spill onto hospital floors and I call it my living. For the last 4 years my tears have poured onto yoga mats. This time my sweat poured onto the gym floor and I know now that it’s time to get to work. This was exactly what I needed and what my body has been trying to tell me.
I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to ask for what I need. At 48 I certainly know how to meet my own needs so I don’t ask for much, but I am asking for a little help here. I am asking for us all to put our differences aside in order to improve our healthcare system. I’ll use everything I got to make this dream a reality and I don’t need a life coach to show me how to use what is buried inside of me.
Sorry I don’t want to ride or die anymore. I only want to live so I won’t ever lie to myself and say I can’t live without anything or anyone ever again. Life taught me I can always live. I still love summer even if I’m at the beach this year instead of that godforsaken lake I spent last year at. If my kids ask how my day was I tell them the truth; if it was rough and I’m tired then I express that. The Nurse knows that sometimes it helps to talk about it and sometimes it does not.
I forgot my cousins birthday, but I remembered to live for all those who did not get to live.
Yesterday I cleaned out my car and found this card a stranger handed to me back in 2021.
Now I’m ready, are you? By the way that gym shot below is from yesterday. I look absolutely miserable in the selfies I exchanged last year. There is no use crying over spilled milk. Nanny Shirley used to say that. She also used to add a third line to fool me once, shame on you—
Fool me three times and you better run 🖤
Rise up, Warrior... 48 and 49 are the years of cleansing, preparation for the real work of life ahead. All the retrospection, the culling away of what is not needed, the gathering in of what is left to do before the Big 5-0...
then the Sun rises, and we realise Life is still beautiful, and so are we.💖
Love your writing style. It just drew me in. Such a talent! ✨