It's been good

For a year or so I have been thinking mostly of my retirement. What the word actually will mean for me will unfold. It is a thrilling time, like being a senior in high school facing graduation, but doubly so because I have worked as a nurse much longer than those twelve growing up years. Like that though, it means closing one chapter and opening another one, yet unwritten with only an outline.

I have been mentally reviewing my career while looking forward to the changes that are to come. In the beginning, if someone had told me that I would have lasted this long in nursing, I would have laughed in disbelief. With all the fear and queasiness I had, I felt that I barely made it out of nursing school, and since I really didn’t want to be a nurse, I sometimes felt like a fraud. I was more comfortable with guys and was concerned how I could survive in a workplace with all women, but it worked out. God placed me in my niche, gave me the strength I needed, and I have remained to serve, with RN proudly behind my name.

Over the years each time I reached what I thought was the end of my rope, something, usually some kind words or a new perspective, called me back. I wondered how I would know when it would be time to leave for good. Would it be a slip knot in the rope and no new perspective? Would it be a big, scary event? It has been none of the above thankfully. It is simply time to hang it up. The government gives us that option.

I have measured the last quarter century by where I was working, and work I did. I think I was in the hospital when many big things happened in my life. It was where I got the calls about my children’s engagements or listened to happy news of expectant babies. I cried on the shoulder of another nurse when Peter called to tell me he was going in the Navy. And when he was in an accident and airlifted to a trauma center, there I was in the nurses station. Maybe it was all for a reason as I immediately had someone to share the good and the bad news.

For a while I may write some of my stories here in my little blog.