No couple is perfect. Not a single couple on the face of the Earth or the ones that came before us is perfect or was perfect. I learned real fast that marrying when you're young comes with a lot of negativity from outside sources and it can and will bring out the absolute worst in people. I really saw people's true colors when Thomas and I got married. Some people barely wanted to acknowledge it and some traveled insane distances just to witness our union. Eventually we both came to the conclusion that no matter how anyone else felt about it, whether they were happy or not, we were doing it for us and that was the important part.
It wasn't easy to come to the conclusion that I wanted to get a divorce. It meant that I would be losing my best friend, but the sad reality of it all is that I had lost him many months ago and that's been the hardest pill to swallow. It sucks when you're bound to someone like that, but it feels like they're so far away and you don't even know who they are after a while. It's truly heartbreaking and I've been stumbling around like I'm missing a limb, but I'll survive. I have to do what's best for me and the time we've spent separated has allowed me to gain just a little more of my sanity.
For some reason or just because I have horrible luck, I can't ever have the aspect of my life going in all the right directions. While my marriage has been put on hold and it feels like my body is falling apart, my mental health has been much more stable and I've been on the right track with my medication and work is everything that I hoped it would be. From the time I started nursing school, I knew that I wanted to work as an OB/GYN nurse. I've always felt something strong when I would learn more and more about the female reproductive system and I eventually realized that that was my calling. It's one of those things that allows me to present others with mind-blowing facts. That's one of my favorite things to do anyway, but doing it with nursing reassures me that I'm not just rambling about useless information that people don't find as fascinating as I do. I usually get discouraged and question my own intelligence, but I don't feel that way at all when educating my patients with facts pertaining to their situations.
One thing that I really paid attention to was how shocked everyone was in my interview when I told them that I plan on becoming a midwife in the future. I wanted this job so bad that I actually broke down and cried my eyes out until I was blue in the face. Nothing was going right at my last job and I thought that I was about to lose my shit.
Dr. Keblawi was incredibly caught off guard when he asked how I was liking it. Without hesitation, I proudly said that I loved it and it was my dream job. I took a pay cut, but I gained a better schedule, environment, and a better life as a mom. He was shocked when I said that I wanted to pursue a career in obstetrics since becoming a nurse. Most importantly, I was tired of watching people die. I was traumatized by finding a man drowning in his own blood recently. At the very beginning of my career, I had no choice at one point but to do CPR on a dead man (it was obvious that he was already dead. Being a new nurse, with seeing all of the color drained from his body, I thought that rigor mortis was beginning to set in. He was a full code, so legally we had to make an attempt). I had no choice but to do chest compressions on a dead body and I did it with tears in my eyes the whole time, apologizing even though I knew that he couldn't hear me. I actually stood by and watched the light leave the eyes of another man as I held my breath, feeling like I was watching his soul depart with my own two eyes. I watched another man have a seizure right before his brain shut down to which the rest of his body followed shortly after and I couldn't do anything but make him comfortable.
I had grown tired of treating those little people like my own grandparents when other people didn't care like I did. I didn't have the heart to work with careless individuals anymore. You'd see my little self standing in a chair just to make sure I could reach their faces and mouths to clean them thoroughly (I can't stand for my mouth and lips to be dry before going to bed, so I would imagine it would be just as uncomfortable if you were dying). I'd make a million trips into their rooms just to make sure they didn't die alone. I'd become mean and vicious toward anyone that didn't care as much as I did whenever one of them got hurt. It was hard, but ultimately I had to make the decision to walk away from long term care for good.. Some days, I miss my little people, but I haven't looked back since and I don't regret leaving when I did.
I simply told myself that the only way from here is up and I was right. Dr. Keblawi said that with this job, people will be bringing me life and life is the key to a brighter tomorrow and I don't think he knows how hard that hit me. While I've felt like I've been in a rough place with my mental health, I wake up every day looking forward to the future and I can't tell you how long it's been since I felt that way. I don't feel stuck and I can't tell you how amazing that feels. With this job and finally getting the chance to focus on being a good mom to my boys, I've found my purpose.
