In three weeks I will be returning to school, finishing my last year of RN school. (Long pause). I sat in my seat, probably smelling like my last cigarette-I don’t smoke often at all, but when I do, I feel like I am hovering in a fog of it. Also: I am HUMAN. Anyway, I’m sitting there at the meeting, listening to the teacher and current students on how the year will be like, and then I listen to the nurse’s club (they have a more eloquent name, but I digress) and they’re all gung-ho about conventions, fees, activities and blah-sy blah. And I think, you know, there was a time when I was gung-ho. Motivated. Felt like I was going somewhere. I don’t think I’m getting cold feet. It’s really hard when people who you trust for the most part, barely lends an ear and just dismisses it as “being nervous”. Don’t get me wrong, I was a little excited, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only person in the room who was thinking, just get over with it already.
But it’s not.
As the past three years recede further in the rear-view mirror, I can see that a lot has happened. A lot has, and some of it, I try really hard to grasp the reality of it, to understand it. But the fact of the matter there is a fraction of me that is dissociated and not present. And I have told myself time and again that this is coping, this is accepting that things don’t always go your way, and here I go again, further down the rabbit hole.
Surely I cannot tell people how to live, or resent others’ pasts, but the least I can do is get a grip on my own life. And that is something I feel I have failed in with flying colors. Surely, I have accomplished some things, but there are things I want to do, and I feel like I am finishing something else because it’s the right thing…well, it’s not the right thing to do. I’ve gone against my gut enough to the point that I resent myself.
I could just see how I was on my way, the future seemed brighter, goals were getting done..then things happened, I started to lose confidence not just in career but as a girlfriend, then as a wife, and all the while just trying to just keep it together. I felt like I was pushing against a current, a current that is still here today. And I’ve done enough ignoring it, that I’ve basically become numb. I don’t recognize myself in pictures, just fragments. I wonder if my son can sense it, and it rocks my core. And worse yet, I couldn’t even explain to him how I don’t even have the guts to change. And in not doing so, it makes you appear forgetful, careless, not as smart, indifferent, when really you’re just not present. I’ve let go, I’ve moved on, yet I don’t feel whole.
Hello, Miss G, reality is holding on line one for you. Reality, line one..
No, no. Don’t want to deal with you now. Can’t rock the boat. And in sickness and in health. For all the love and attention not given, I return with mind numb status quo. And in fear and in disabled..Perhaps once again returning to self-medicating with bad habits, temporary gratifications of control, and busy work, distractions.
Another distraction that gets in the way of knowing that you just really want to do something else, somewhere else and it has been miles since you’ve last felt that life was sitting in the passenger seat.
