Definitions...?!?

I always like to begin explaining things to people, in particular myself, by using a definition. As if I dont already know or couldn't accurately guess what Old Webster has to say on a given topic. For me, it's a focal point, a starting point, a definite point... I feel like I need a foundation of fact before I can legitimately make a point. Not sure why, but it's boring and it's a habit I blame at least partially for my abandoned blog.

Off topic a minute, other things to blame for my lack of blog-ivation; no time, nothing to say (ok thats a lie), fear that no one cares what I have to say or that I will be totally and obliviously uninteresting, and most of all having put myself through a total mummification process all the while forgetting to actually die in the physical sense.

So, I believe that in the "real" mummification process the person has to be dead and deemed important. I don't think of myself as important, which is a true shame...I'm important to someone I'm sure. Anyway, the body than gets embalmed which is cool but totally disgusting and then tightly wrapped and properly buried.. Which is how I feel. The only feeling I"ve allowed myself in quite some time.

So, this blog and the next several might be boring (you've been warned) but I think this is the first step to progress. I am admitting I have a problem (ok several problems). I have however successfully blogged without any definitions (though I was tempted by embalming). I am going to TRY to stop caring whether anyone cares to read this or finds me interesting, make time, and put some feelings on paper. Or at least onto a page.

Time to start un-wrapping. Wish me luck.

If love was enough...

So last night while stuffing my face with smores and watching Greys Anatomy, a dying patient on the show made a comment that set me into a crying frenzy for the first time in months. She asked Dr McDreamy to tell her boyfriend who was not going to make it to say good bye in person that... "if love were enough, I would still be here with you."
My first thought was "oh fuck, here we go" and as I processeed what that meant for me...no longer waiting, no longer hoping, no longer expecting...anything to be better, or different....I realized how far I've come and how far Ive yet to go. More importantly, I realized that, if love were enough, I would still be here with him. And He would still be here with me. I guess love is not enough. Some things may in fact be far more important.

Dreams Renewed

It's been forever since my last post, but I'm glad I have that poem to look back on now that my life is on track. I made a difficult choice to drop nursing and change schools. Now, I'm majoring in criminal justice which is much more broad, much less certain, but so much more fun! I'm aceing my classes and still enjoying them, making friends and new beginnings, and I am more proud of myself than I ever have been.
Apparently, happiness is contagious because Hayden is flourishing at his new school. He too is making friends and enjoying himself. We've also become more active together as spring blooms; between bike rides and swimming and long walks at night we've become closer.
I feel happier, healthier, and more hopeful and I'm looking forward to whatever comes next. Here's to new beginnings!

Dreams

Relatively aware
I should be, and I am
ashamed.

I have no dreams.

Albeit a silent blackness
that fills my sleep
like a turned off television;
pictureless, speechless, motionless,
I feel no rest.

But I also feel no pain.
Not quite numb
just nothingness
where something-ness should be.
I miss it.

Not sure what
Im groggy with a loss of REM
and too much caffiene.

Ashamed,
relatively aware I should be,
and I am.

Two

My little man is two and I finally understand the expression time flies. He is running and jumping, taking the stairs with alternating feet, and demanding to wear his crocs to bed and his rain boots to school. He is learning the alphabet and he sings along to the itsy bitsy spider. He says I love you; out loud and in sign. A week ago, he transitioned easily to his toddler bed. When I tuck him in he says "bye, mama. Bye!" and blows me a kiss. In the morning, he sneaks into my room and crawls into my bed, wraps his arms around me and plants a big smooch right on my lips. He swims like a fish, leaps off the diving board, and kicks all the water onto the bathroom floor while he "practices" in the tub. He plays rough, sometimes hits, but always apologizes with a big hug. He says "hi" to every person we walk by, shouts "dog" and "dump truck" and "oh look mama" as we drive around town, and sings all the "na na nas" right on que to Akons latest single. He runs to church in a real hurry to "help the babies" in the nursury. He never has to be reminded to finish his plate, no matter what I put on it. He sits semi still after fetching the scizzors so mama can "make me handsome?" His blond hair goes bed head day after day because he refuses to let me comb it. And he never fails to convince me that he is the sweetest, funniest, most intelligent two year old at least this side of the great wall (if not on both sides of it).

Seconds

Just recently, a good friend of mine filled me in on the news. She's pregnent. With her second, as it seems all of my friends have popped out recently. Of the five of us, Im the only one left with a single child. From happily married to single with a pair of adopted, they are all forming little herds and as I sit in the hospitals 5n/motherbaby overflow listening to the cries of the most recently born kids in town, I cant help feeling just a tad left behind.
My head knows that I want to do it right this time. You know, that logical sequence of college degree, wedding ring, (second) baby. But my heart stirs watching them redo those first kicks from the womb, those first family introductions, and the first snuggles with their newborns. They argue over baby names and two kids in the family bed, and I try not to forget how precious this time with just the two of us will be when its my turn for a second.

On Death and Dying

I hate that I've become that person who blogs too much about her job, but today I have to. Twice before I've had a patient die on my time. Once I was lucky and lunch interfered with me wrapping up the leftovers. The next time, I braved it alone, foolishly procrastinating until rigor mortis had kicked in, and had to spend half an hour preying the poor stiff wouldn't wake up and grab me, not dead at all but irritated that I'd disrupted his sleep. Today, three patients... a third of my case load... lay desperatly ill and dying. One had been assigned a one to one sitter to keep from pulling out vital tubes and wiring. One spent the day in silence, eyes rolled back, barely breathing until, suprizingly, my goodbye at the end of shift wasn't his last. One passed. Whatever that means.

This time a nurse as sweet as an angel helped me clean and prepare the body. She spoke his name through the silence, explaining to him what we were about to do as if he could hear. As if. I half chuckled and started a sentence with her name before I realized she was right. In the short minutes that followed, she taught me that while it is never as hard again as the first time, it never gets easy. Nor should it, because fear and grief are natures way of showing respect. She taught me how to let go. And when I discovered my hand patting his back, and laughed at myself for it, she taught me that too was ok.