Stream of Consciousness Sunday: On Back Up Plans…

When I became a nurse, I was 23 years old, and so in love with it. I loved working nights. I loved my nursing friends. I loved the challenge, the adrenaline rush, the doctors..it was FUN.

And it was fun for 10 years. Somewhere around year 11, the thrill began to wear off. I don’t know if it was because I had a miscarriage and still had to work with pregnant mothers, or that I was married and the long hours just didn’t work anymore.

And then Pookah was born.

And everything in me rebelled at the thought of being away from him for 12 hours at a time. From missing Christmas and holidays and weekends and games, and awards shows.

I tried to change, found an office job.  Then a work at home job.

Nothing worked. And I was miserable and I felt like I was losing time. Time with Pookah, time with me..

And life was just..passing me by, while I miserably clung to a career because it had good benefits and because it’s what I was supposed to do.

Last week, I let that nursing license expire. 

Why?

Because I’m 42 years old and I’ll be damned if I do ANYTHING that I that makes me miserable.  

MISERABLE.

When I decided not to renew my nursing license, there was a lot of shock and awe.

What if you want to go back?

Then I’ll apply to renew it and take whatever re-entry course is required.

What if you  NEED money?

It’s called savings. It’s called my Bachelor’s Degree. It’s called Uber, and Target and making latte’s at Starbucks if it comes to it. 

What if?

Listen.

I decided that by hanging on to that one back up plan, I was not doing myself any favors. I was planning to fail. 

Last year, I admit, was an experiment. I had always said that if I had more TIME, I could make blogging work. 

Well, I had it last year, and I made it work. 

And to be honest, now that I’ve seen the light outside of the tunnel, I realize just how miserable I really was.

MISERABLE.

Nursing was a joy. It was my favorite thing. I loved seeing babies come into the world, I loved the adrenaline rush. I loved it with everything in me. It was THE thing for me. 

And then it wasn’t.

Or rather it wasn’t that thing for me and my family.

We are happy. Deliriously so. And now I see that when Mama is happy, it flows down to the rest of the family.

So it wasn’t hard to simply let it go. 

So My back up plan?

To live my life.

Happily.

Fully.

Joyfully. 

Stop.

 

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

 

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.

Disclaimer: this took me 8 minutes, but it was still in the spirit of SOC Sunday because it’s unedited and raw. I just added the photo and hit publish.