Kim Possible

thenextbesthing @ 2009-02-18T07:24:00

2009-02-18T12:25:29Z

hahaha, who saw it coming? you? you? prooobably. I'm usually the last to know.

thenextbesthing @ 2008-05-09T00:40:00

2008-05-09T05:02:56Z

I think my heart is starting to calm down. I want to make sense of the parts of myself that weren't covered in anatomy and physiology. I want to know them, the places that are untouchable and unidentifiable. I catch glimpses of them sometimes in the company of good friends. I guess I just have to be ready to listen, willing to question, and okay with uncertainty. I must deliberately remember that getting to know myself is a lifelong process. We change daily. Todays answers might expire by tomorrow.

thenextbesthing @ 2008-05-05T18:59:00

2008-05-05T23:17:19Z

Humans. When we are in pain we curl up, the way shrimp do when they're cooked. We contort our bodies to protect our soft organ underbellies. lungs. liver. intestines. heart. We wield our back bones as shields. We prioritize heart over spine, reflexively. I think that says something about us as a species. About our priorities and purpose. Maybe love isn't about bravery. I've been wrong before.

The catholic in me is always trying to confess to you. It isn't fair. You are no priest. I scribble secrets and confessions on paper towels. I throw bottles of best guesses into the ocean, towards the place where I imagine your shore. I wait for word without regard of the tide. I hope I am not waiting for answers, just confirmation of receipt.

Truth has placed her hand against my chest and is pushing against me. It is a dare. She's waiting for me to make my move and I am holding my breath. Why?

My best guess is that I want this, or at least the idea of it. I can't tell the difference, but I do not stop thinking about it. It sneaks up on me unexpectedly, and I am never prepared. It comes in dreams and I have butterflies for miles in my gut.

I am duplicitous. You taught me that word. In the exact moment I am taken over by butterflies and relief, I am reveling in my plan to stay the course. Both emotions feel sincere, so I cannot trust either of them. Part of the landscape of my heart looks like the palm of your hand. I do not trust my heart either. How much of the information she sends me is the desparate attempt to rename someone "answer" to my question? I am not to be trusted. I want my love and protectiveness to be enough to guard you from me. I think of pain and the curve of my spine.

Is it enough?

Full circle

2008-04-25T18:12:45Z

It was 8 o'clock in the morning. My feet hurt, my eyes felt dry and sleepy-swollen. Hospital air is the driest air around, I'd pit it against any desert. I wanted to go home, but I didn't want to leave. Stepping outside would mark the end of the craziest series of experiences of my life. Stepping outside would mean my career as a nursing student had actually ended. And how could it have possibly ended already?

Four years of theory, three of practice. Somewhere in there I actually learned what I never thought I would. It felt so impossible, first semester sophomore year, shaking in my boots outside my first patient's room. "I have to take vital signs. I have to take vital signs. HolyshitIhavetotakevitalsigns." One patient at a time felt overwhelming. Some of the nurses were distant, unsure what to do with us. We were just LNAs with a better paycheck in our future, if we could make it through.

And somehow we have.

COPD, CHF, ARF, CRF, CAD, PAD, s/p lap chole, influenza, pneumonia, marfan's, hyperthroidism, hypothyroidism, diabetes, hypertension, hypotension, syncope, electrolyte imbalance of every variety, metabolic acidosis/alkaosis, respiratory acidosis/alkaosis, appendectomy, SIADH, TBI, seizures, coma, leukemia, cancer of every variety, meningitis, MRSA, VRSA, massive wounds, amputations, MIs, pacemaker placements, cardiac catheterizations, bronchoscopies, lung biopsies, total knee and hip replacements, hysterectomies, thyroidectomies, bone biopsies, bone marrow aspiration, central line and picc placements, chest tubes, ventilators, DKA, neuropathy, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, massive depression, dissociative personality disorder, suicide attempts, pregnancy, breast feeding, vaginal birth, cesarean section, fetal demise, premies, RSV, hemorrhage, asthma, tube feedings, ADHD, survivors of sexual assault, domestic abuse, poverty, perpetrators of sexual assault and domestic violence, hit/punched/body-checked/kicked/spit on/scratched/slapped by patients, MRT's, codes, post-mortem care. and that's probably not all.

I have seen all of these things. Each patient has a story, and the pockets of my memory are bulging with them. I carry them around, so many stories with unknown endings. I don't know what happens to them after they leave. We have short, intense encounters where they tell me their histories, their secrets, their fears, their jokes, and I listen and sew additions to my pockets so I won't forget. I think this is why I have such difficulty remembering where I put my ID and my keys. If there's no room left and I have to choose what to keep, I choose them.

And last night I had my last 4 patients as a student. I want to keep them here in case my memory get bruised and dim.

David: syncope, atrial fibrillation/atrial flutter, orthostatic hypotension, diabetes, BPH with urinary retention, pacemaker placement. Sweet, sweet person. I admitted him wednesday night, and he hugged me thursday when I came back with a playful, "OH hey Kim's back! It's going to be a good night!"

Eunice: CHF, new onset. 80 years old and sharp as a tac. Willing to spit in the world's eye and give anyone shit if she thought they needed it. Big glasses, almost no hair. Sweet as anything if you made a few good jokes and gave her a wink.

Albert: s/p laryngectomy, influenza/pneumonia, likes to offer his pills verbal encouragement when they don't come out of the package easily "come on you, get out here, you can do it, 'atta boy!" Sweet as high fructose corn syrup. Hoarse voice that reminded me of sawdust. Kept offering the most sincere "thank you's" I've ever heard for the smallest things. He broke my heart. No visitors. Spent a lot of time keeping him company and hearing about his grandkids.

Dave: Oh Dave. Hypertensive encephalopathy with mental status changes and diabetes. VERY confused. talks in his sleep to people who are not there. "Get in the right branch and you can see the world, you'd be a good fighter pilot! No, they won't get me back in the navy. hahah, no, I don't think so. I served my 4 years and was pretty chickenshit by the end of it. You know my sister?" When he was awake he was having visual and auditory hallucinations. clouds of smoke and mosquitoes in his room. babies crying outside. multiplying TVs. His car running, who's car was he in a little while ago? His son dropped an anvil on his granddaughters head. She must be dead, but none of the children in his room will tell him what happened. His son died a few weeks ago, cirrhosis. His wife would not be able to handle the news, she loved that little girl. She was cremated and he wants to be too! Not much land left for bodies! Getting more and more expensive, better die soon if you want to be buried. We kept his bed alarm on because he kept wandering off. Every time the alarm would sound he'd pick up his found, or hit the staff emergency button. I'd take him to the bathroom, close the door behind him, and he would knock to be let out. "You don't see the smoke? I'm losing it then, huh? Bananas. Off my rocker. LOOK! There! you can't see that?? Damn. Damn. I guess I'm going bonkers."

The staff like me, at least. They're looking forward to me joining "the team." AFG "fired" me a few times Thursday morning for not having tape, printing out the wrong form, little things. Jeanne was ragging on me being the "newest member." And this morning, as I was leaving, the charge nurse told me how impressed she's been with my performance and demeanor. "I've thought on more than one occassion, 'wow, I hope my daughter presents herself the way you do.'"

So TAKE THAT UNH Nursing Department! I've learned it. I've done it. I've made it. I've been waiting for this since I was 15 years old. My career is about to begin.

I'm going to be a nurse.

thenextbesthing @ 2008-03-12T22:14:00

2008-03-13T02:21:03Z

I've spent the last week as a complete hermit. I need to get my act together and stop hiding from everything I need to do, like applying for more jobs... and working. Why is it that when I pretend to be an ostrich, the things that stress me out NEVER go away?

Okay, so, self: I promise you that I will stop avoiding the things that stress you out. Instead, I will do them and be done with them so they will stop being a source of stress. Also, I promise to clean your room and be more organized. And, although I can't promise it, I will try my best to stop your dislike of Carli from ruining the last two months on Lexington Street.

Most sincerely, and with the best of intentions,
The rational thinking half of your mind.

thenextbesthing @ 2008-03-03T11:28:00

2008-03-03T16:41:36Z

I sort of wish I had kept closer track of clinical stories here like I used to. Here are a few of the characters I want to remember:

Bickering British old couple, indignant man who fell on his ass because he did not want to call us to fetch the urinal for him. "God you're a pretty little thing, you are, aren't you."

Sweet as pie older woman with her whole extended family in her room all day long. Fettuccine with olive oil and garlic. Doing laps with her husband around the unit as per the ritual that kept them healthy and strong for so long.

Inappropriate old Irishman. First application of a pressure dressing. Huge hematoma.

Don and his wife Natalie. Married 60something years. "Why don't you just let me die?" Died 2/24/08

LSMR with his big smile and little cap being sent off to Hyder House.

336 PTSD and edema.

I can't remember much further back than these. Funny how after a while everyone's story sort of gets intertwined and you can't remember their faces anymore. Sometimes people write their life stories in my memory with washable ink, some people use sharpies. Even the washable ones are never fully gone. They pop up the next time you have a similar case and you stand outside their door and try to get a better look at their face, thinking "Have I seen them before? Didn't I take care of them a while ago?"
And the answer is yes, of course you did. But last time they might have been male or female, a few years older or younger, with a little more or less hair and sense of humor. Blurry. I need to keep closer track.

thenextbesthing @ 2008-02-19T00:57:00

2008-02-19T05:56:38Z

Get a grip New England. I can't believe what a tease the weather has been. it borders on cruelty, really, if we're being honest. After being cold for so long, all it took was a bit of warm weather for me to realize that I've been scarcely breathing for the past few months. My lungs felt rigid, and there is still something icy about the way I feel inside of myself, something that will take until spring to melt. That's New England though, she knows how to put the moves on you so you're walking around on eggshells without even knowing it. It's like living 4 months at gun-point, marking your breath in little puffy clouds until you forget what the color green looks like. And I did, until today. But I was sure not to look at it in more than a glance, as if staring could undo it, and make it somehow untrue. Still I'm sure I saw it, so the evidence is there. Spring is coming. Secrets out. The thaw always makes things seem clearer, and what would spring be without reinvention? I swear, each year I get older I understand the mistakes I've made better, but the clarity isn't comforting.

The last "poem" I wrote was in July 07, and I happened upon it today. Reading it felt similar to the way you feel when you accidentally open the door on someone while they're in the bathroom. Or rather, being the person walked in on. Very uncomfortable. I want words to come naturally to me again, and I think I've just got to keep pushing on through the discomfort and see where I end up.

God. Do you remember Nashua?

Do you remember book stores and sidewalks? Running in the rain with strangers, listening to the lectures of street preachers just in from New Mexico? My blue Buick with the bench seat? I thought that car was true luxury- and wasn't it? Do you remember those open mic poetry nights? Do you remember Doc and the bald Russian poet? Do you remember how well we all got along even though none of us belonged in that group together? What about the impromptu hallway meetings? We made promises to keep in touch, to write and publish. We made promises and sought out swing sets because it's too hot in Nashua's summertime to do anything else. Movie nights. Board games. It feels like these memories belong to someone else, and they might as well, if you don't remember them too. Are you still here? Have you guessed that I'm wishing you [all], wishing you all the best? always. I want my life to be an open palm, and if we've changed and drifted I want that to be okay. I want the space and the silence to be well-wishing. We're all different people now and that has to be okay. Besides, how could we have stayed the same? And who made up the guidelines deciding "better" from "worse" anyway? I bet that whoever they were, they didn't grow up in Nashua with us. You'd have had to live it to understand it. I hope that whoever you are, wherever you are, you can tell that someone is still rooting for you without even knowing you. We promised that too. I'm sure of it. I'll be true to that, even if my failure at the other promises cannot be forgiven.

To you. To Nashua.
From me.
with love.

thenextbesthing @ 2008-01-28T04:07:00

2008-01-28T09:26:44Z

If this journal existed in a physical sense, it would be buried in several inches of dust.

All the same, being nocturnal involves spending a lot of time in the company of one's own thoughts, and it seems somehow fitting to spell them out here. The transition is always strange at first. The world seems too quiet, too empty, and then too bright. Still, I've never regretted having to spend time with myself, even though lately I've spent most of that time watching tragic, gut-wrenching love stories. You know the kind. Titanic. Romeo & Juliet (with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, obviously). Cold Mountain. The Moulin Rouge. At least, these are the ones I've been watching because these are the ones I have on hand. All of a sudden I can't get enough of Ewan McGreggor. I have no explanations for you.

I just finished watching Big Fish in my very cold room. I will always love that movie because, years ago, Alex bought it for me and taped a note on the front that said something to the effect of "This movie always makes me think of you. You're my girl in the blue dress." Embarrassingly sweet, isn't it? That's Pooch though, through and through.

I'm nervous about graduating and applying for a job, and potentially being rejected. Where is the goddamn nursing shortage? The hospital I most want to work at only has 8 openings in their new graduate program. Given the fact that it's the best hospital in this area and it's only a few blocks from UNH, it's going to be really competitive. We'll see. I'll give it a shot. I keep sling-shotting back and forth between knowing that I am perfectly capable of being an exceptional RN and feeling as if the past 6 years of nursing education were a colossal mistake. It's a very comfortable feeling, I swear. Not at all panic inducing.

....really.

Too late to turn back now anyways. I'm 278 hours away from being eligible to take the state exam. In 278 hours I could be an RN. I'm spending those hours on a cardiac telemetry floor trying to figure out how to interpret rhythm strips, which I am abysmal at.

At any rate, it's nice to be close enough now to dream of a post-college life. An apartment with Alex. with heat. and a functioning shower that is capable of maintaining temperature. Potted herbs. Income. Recreational reading. Moving to California. Soon.

I'm real close.

thenextbesthing @ 2007-10-26T09:43:00

2007-10-26T14:02:05Z

Psych is over. Cue the collective sigh of relief.

Someday, my dear journal, I will write more to you than nursing school stories and frustrations. I must try to remember to tell you the happy things too, or history will think I was always miserable.
And I'm not miserable. not always.

For instance, let's consider the whoopie pie. Just thinking about this simple dessert makes me giggle. (seriously.) Something about the name, or how amaaaaaaaaaazingly delicious it is. Whoopie pies are close to cure alls. We all know food is my favorite remedy. culinary art is a nursing intervention.

What else. Scooby. Scooby is a riot. She is alive and well, scampering around her too-big cage that I always worry is too small. She is a love. Small little scooby.

And there's loads of great people. (caitpoochavamirbessemwumollysarahmarynicoledonnastacymichellecaitlinmaybeevendebandofcoursemyfamily)

5:45am walks with Cait are a riot. I can't do the humor justice. The two of us in sweats hitting the broken uneven sidewalks of Dover in the dark before morning- hoods up and pulled tight. Too much too much. I love it.

I like reading Harry Potter books almost as much as I like playing World of Warcraft. Common theme: I WANT MAGICAL POWERS. stat. please and thank you.

I crochet scarves. I am a compulsive scarf maker. Repetitive motions are soothing, and who in their right mind in New England doesn't love a good scarf? I mean, really.

So there, I've managed it then. A non-nursing based update. Be proud of me journal, this is part of the termination process of my relationship with nursing school. And I didn't even mention how stressed out I am!
Praise be.

thenextbesthing @ 2007-10-14T19:44:00

2007-10-14T23:45:11Z

I'm afraid of never doing anything remarkable.
I'm afraid of not being brave.

well, alright then, come on in.

2007-10-08T19:30:19Z

Things I want:

Long beautiful roads to run on free of traffic and pollution.
Fall weather, all the time.
A big comfortable bed.
Soft pillows.
A clean kitchen.
Alex close by.
Tons of artistic talent.
Time to do nonacademic things to make me feel like a complete human.
Most other humans to disappear (or)
Humanity to suck less profoundly.
Lots of animal friends.
A good nights sleep.
Enough money to live a life like this.

It is a simple list, really. and YOU should be doing YOUR part to suck less profoundly. Every little bit helps. And please, for CHRISTSSAKE, stop fucking talking. Really. The time has come to stop.

Nursing Diagnosis for Humanity: Failure to thrive related to greed, apathy and patriarchal white supremacy as manifested by...
let's be honest. as manifested by EVERYTHING.
every patient's story. every chart with its need and orderly lines and its impressively detached lingo. By "h/o TBI secondary to physical abuse c 2x4 age 3" and "early family positive for sexual abuse age 2" and "pt. c/o SI, admitted following attempted hanging by shoelaces in public bathroom." and "multiple instances of sexual abuse to sisters witnessed by pt."

Fuck that. fuck acting like things aren't related. fuck trying to summarize that kind of trauma with digestible abbreviations. fuck English 401. fuck the nursing department. fuck rent. fuck groceries. fuck food. fuck it. I've got 8 more months until I can be a person.

So, self-care plan:
Take a nap.
Hug Cait.
Drink a glass of wine.
Bake a cake.
Play world of warcraft.
Go for a run.
Pet Bogart.
Research egg donation as a source of income.
Get through the next 72 hours.

you better put some beauty back while you've got the energy

2007-08-03T16:23:37Z

words are slow to come today. I'm listening to music for what feels like the first time in years. I'm trying to fill myself up with song. Right now, reading and music are what I'm trying to sustain off of. Well, that and a box of roasted garlic triscuits that are more MSG than they are carbohydrate. yum.

I'm trying to get a grasp on things, basically. I'm trying to wrap my head around all the possibilities the come between the inevitabilities. I only have between today and my death to live, and I feel like I'm wasting time by obsessing over how to spend it. Nurse, chef, hermit, coupled, single, men, women, bicycle, car, run, read, work, study, hide....

I want answers. I want sentences to write about my life that end in periods or exclamation points.
I want a life where I do something other than take 8hr breaks from hiding in my room to go to work. Which is exactly what I've been doing for nearly a week- hiding and feeling guilty about occupying space knowing that people are counting the days until I leave. Leave for my last year of school and whatever might come afterwards. The problem lately is that the fantasy future dream of a life has exploded. Working in the hospital has taught me that acute care nursing is more pills and paperwork than patients. The dream of a kitchen to call my own and the little dog/cat and Alex...the fantasy has been replaced by a fear that 20 years from now I will realize I lost time to live the life I was made for.
Part of me is aching. The ache I am sure of, the cause and cure are speculations only. The scientific method is useless for anything other than science experiments.

haaaaaa ha

2007-06-30T14:01:18Z

The new job:
shitty work (literally, we're talking about a lot of human excrement) and yesterday by 3:30 my feet felt the way they did after the 10k (!)
........buuuuuuuuuut I love it. It's great to be working with people again. Older women most of all. I am the snake charmer of older women, little known fact. The nonverbal, the confused... bring them on my friend! Nothing is as satisfying as making them smile. nursing as sisterhood.
Truth.

One of my favoritefavorite nurses from my clinical rotation sophomore year was still there! And god help us by the end of the day she remembered me.
"Kimmy, you're a nursing student aren't you? I KNEW you looked familiar!"
she said she'd be calling my supervisor to request that I work on Fuller Unit next week with her. I wanted her to be my clinical preceptor from day 1 of that rotation, but now I'm looking more seriously at trying out for a critical care position while I'm still a student (less stressful and a lot safer with folks double checking everything you do). She's strictly med-surg, so going the CC route would mean finding a new preceptor candidate. Even so, it was nice to be remembered by someone I idolized.

The new house:
so far so good. I'm walking distance away from the Elliot, which is convenient because I still don't have/want a car. theres a 3 season porch that is excellent for reading/passing time because the only people I know in this city are my mother and bob. so. yeah. the weather is perfect for sitting out there, feet on the table listening to ella fitzgerald. All that porch needs is a cat and I would be set for life.
Scooby seems to be happy here so far, I refilled her little digging chamber the other day and it perked her up to be able to dig endlessly around. Little monster. My hamster has traveled more than some people have.

I'm sorry to report that I'm starting to miss school, if for nothing other than want for company. I don't think that the reality of not knowing anyone in this city has set in yet, and I'm grateful for that. Alex will be coming up this weekend and it will be so great to have him around.

thenextbesthing @ 2007-06-22T13:17:00

2007-06-22T17:31:50Z

Christ I'm tired.

Might be from the run... but I doubt it.
Might be from the anxiety of starting a new job
or packing up the past 19 years of my life
or coming across evidence of all the things I thought I had long since buried...

Junior High. Holy fuck. I'll never stop being amazed that any of us survived it.

My eyes are dry and my shoulders keep cramping up on me. Are we really moving out of Nashua? I mean, really? How sure are we that Nashua is a place that can be left? We've been here so long that it felt there was no choice in the matter. We were assigned here, somehow. Positioned here like soldiers at a military base. something about the line of duty, serve and protect.
I don't remember anyone saying we could leave if we wanted to.
Sometimes its hard to remember that those little freedoms are still intact, after everything thats happened. Especially after reading the handmaid's tale (haven't read it? READIT)

Growing up is becoming very real, all the BIG milestones are there...
moving out of your childhood city
living in an apartment
paying rent
paying loans/bills
graduating college in a few months...
Even my relationships are feeling more adult, which is a strange word to use to describe anything, trust me, I know. But yesterday I went out to buy queen sized sheets because Ma is giving me her bed. Not that buying sheets is adult, or even that queen sized sheets are a measurement of maturity.... but I accepted the bed and went out to buy sheets for it because that will be the bed alex and I sleep in when we move in together. I even texted him on color preference. Red, by the way. Like the walls on "my room" in Manchester. My mom refuses to acknowledge that I might not move back in with her after I move out in August. I asked her what she'll do with "my room" when I'm gone. Nothing, she says. That's going to be your room.

Ohhhh. But mom...what will it be when I am not in it? It must be harder for parents to let go than it is for us to move on. Whats that song quote... "its always easier to be leaving than to be left behind." fuck that's true.

One of the strangest things (one of very many) about moving out has been finding everything I've written. Dozens of notebooks, stacks and stacks of looseleaf paper, computer paper from when I had my typewriter, backsides of notes from class, tucked into high school agenda books... the volume of writing has blown me away. revisiting all the versions of myself and always, through all of it, I was writing. I miss that. I wish I hadn't abandoned that. Everything stops at freshman year. A few pieces that squeezed in during the early part of first semester, and then silence. Like I hung up the phone on myself, no longer interested in what I had to say. Or maybe, no longer patient enough to put thought into word.

I miss it.

thenextbesthing @ 2007-03-19T05:08:00

2007-03-27T01:33:31Z

I catheterized a woman today. I'm a real nurse now.

So last night I was chewing myself up over this constant (can't stress the consistency enough) feeling of inadequacy- the "ohmyfuckinggod how do I answer a question like that?!" the "holyfuckingshit am I supposed to know that!?!?"
Then I went to clinical, met with my instructor and found out that Ellen Martin, a brilliant and inspirational CNM had told her how impressed she was with my attentiveness and insight. That was not at all the impression I left with from my experience with Ellen Martin. That day I almost dropped a woman's baby right in fucking front of her. That day the LNA asked me to take a BP on a patient and immediately after I took it she redid it and recorded her results instead of mine. That day I tripped over myself and anyone within a 10 foot radius of me more times than I think have ever been recorded in history. But apparently, I am too self critical. But hey, at least Ellen Martin thinks I'm great.

Too self critical is my new baseline. Too self critical with a constant high level of cortisol and premature ventricular contractions. I swear to god I'm developing secondary heart disease, I swear it. seriously. PVCs and palpitations.

My new running shoes better break themselves in faster because we are going to run 5 miles together tomorrow come hell or high water. Race in 3 weeks. 14 months until NCLEX. My life is a timeline.

I just threw-up a mouthful of acid. I think that means it's time to go to bed.

thenextbesthing @ 2007-03-16T17:59:00

2007-03-17T14:32:44Z

I failed at sandwich making this morning. peanut butter, jelly, banana and honey -a faux panache sandwich. I was very excited for this sandwich, but for some ungodly reason the honey tastes like garlic. So much for that idea. I cannot make myself eat a banana and garlic flavored anything.

I need to document my bizarre dream, in part because it was so fucking strange but also because this journal is really just a way to communicate with cait and I needed an excuse to post (hicait)

okay, so, even now the details are getting a little fuzzy. The Nashua South parking lot was a main player, only it was a lot bigger. I was in high school again with all my old high school friends and some humanoid-robots. One of my classes was about taming dinosaurs and other wild animals. After school a group of us were getting ready for a really extended car trip (I wonder what influenced that...) but I was getting out early to run a few last minute errands. So I went to this random little store that was a cross between a walmart, a zylas, and a grocery store. For some reason Cait and the rest of the women I was going on the trip with were already there. the only one from real life was Cait, the rest of the women were made-up women that I already knew really well in the dream. I kept making bad nursing jokes and was really socially awkward. shocking. So I sulked off to look for an unopened box of cheerio-like cereal to get for the car ride, but they were all half eaten bags with taped-up tops. Then I rejoined the group and there was an older woman with two kids standing near us struggling to keep her pet dinosaur under control, so I had to help her out. Then she ended up having bilateral lower lobe pneumonia so we talked about that for a while and I ended up falling in love with her. nothing more romantic than pneumonia...nice kim. so I told the group that I couldn't go on the trip because I had fallen in love and was running off with a lesbian mom. then I ran a 10k to the parking lot (I'm serious) and came in 30-somethingth place. The feeling of driving the car was really realistic, there was a lot of traffic (back in the Nashua South parking lot) and we were trying negotiate around all these weird turns and robot police. A lot of the exits were blocked by dinosaurs, I guess there was a big problem with the dinosaur population. We kept having to dodge squirrels that were jumping into the road too. The dream didn't actually end, I just woke up while we were still in the parking lot.

The first thing I want to do when I wake up in this house is bake. always. I couldn't just slice up a bit of banana for a sandwich without slicing up the other 3 bananas to make banana bread. of course not. I wonder if they have support groups for this kind of thing.

thenextbesthing @ 2007-03-05T06:29:00

2007-03-06T03:48:38Z

I found out this afternoon that I will be in Washington DC for the first few days of "spring break."
Here is how this will happen:
thursday evening- to Nelson with Molly to meet her family and see their farm
Friday morning- DHMC for clinical
Friday night- Catch bus in Durham when I come back from clinical, drive to DC, sleep on the bus
Saturday- The National Conference on Organized Resistance, workshops all day long
Sunday- Maybe a few more workshops, back to Durham, then to Nashua

research for the rest of break. research and working on my art portfolio. I am aware of how strange my life is.

4 miles today came and went! I have a problem where my feet go numb after I run for a while, so for about a mile there I was running on feet I couldn't feel. But the last half mile I increased my pace and the blood counterintuitively returned to my feet. most unusual. But I feel good, the euphoria that follows a longer run is not all that unlike the glow you get post-orgasm, like everything is good and right in the world and just the feel of blood against vein is all you need. So it would be fair to say that I feel really good. Very calm and zen. I have a resting pulse of 55 so I guess the old ticker is handling the training just fine. I'm not longer worried about not making it through the 6.2 miles anymore, so I might start focusing more on speed training.

Pictures of the ocean make my chest ache in this very deep substernal way- like my entire chest is turning inwards on itself for want of that sight. I don't have any other way to explain it really, other then it feels similar to the ache you get from looking at old pictures of people you've lost touch with. It feels like absolute heartbreak. I am definitely supposed to live my life near the water, I'm sorry NH.

I'm working on providing myself periods in the day to experience silence. Even if I'm doing homework or something else that isn't exactly relaxing, I feel that I'm so surrounded with hustle and noise that I have forgotten how relaxing silence is. How therapuetic that present humming stillness can be.

It has been a week where I don't trust myself as much as I should, and I have not been taking care of my body the way that I should. I've been flitting between being positively manic and not being able to get out of bed and telling my mother that I might drop out of school. (I have since reconsidered that choice, clearly.)

I'm looking forward to DC a lot. I have felt like such a failure of a feminist and activist this past year.

Good morning journal

2007-03-03T15:35:20Z

The weather outside has hints of spring in it, despite the fact that there was a blizzard yesterday. Oh New England, you are so exhausting.

Four miles tomorrow and I'll finally feel like this training is paying off. It seems so silly to get excited about four miles, because it's not far, but it's a half mile further than I've ever gone before. hahah, why do my friends have to be long-distance runners? They run half marathons for the love of god! 13.2 miles! and I'm excited about 4. I reckon you've got to start somewhere right? The training is really working though, I can tell the difference in my strength and endurance, which is good. So we'll do the 10k in April, and then start training on the half marathon I promised myself I'd run by the end of next year.

So that's that.

Alex is a bed hog. The boy is like a sponge, he looks small and compact during the day when he's walking around, but he hits that mattress and expands. I have become rather intoxicated by the daydream life we invented to get me through last week. The moving to California, the condo/town house/real house we will potentially own, the promise of having access to my own personal kitchen, going for long runs with Commodore Wellington while Alex and Duke Ellington keep each other company by the computer... maybe even living near more than 3miles of coastline?

I want that life to be right now. Patience, I need to summon my patience. It will be, what, three more years until we can relocate? I can definitely wait 3 years, especially since only 1 more of them will involve RN education. I could wait 10 knowing only 1 of them would involve nursing school stress.

</daydream> I've got to make sure I work my ass off for the year and a half I have left though. So, off I go.

trying to get in the habit of writing again

2007-03-01T13:44:01Z

Today the goal is to breathe smoothly and purposefully all day long. I keep my misty meadows worry stone in my right hip pocket on days like today. the caduceus my sister gave me sits between my clavicles and my sternum, always, to remind me, encourage me, and in some ways, describe me.

There have been several times this week I've had to strip down and stand in front of the mirror to touch the tattoo on my lower back and remember why I'm doing any of this. To remember why this is worth everything to me. I'm working on understanding that this education isn't supposed to be a crucible or a shackle. I am lucky to be here. I am privilaged to be here. I have a purpose in being here. And this strangely angled world is filled with change and roads that know no end and just loop back into each other. I'm monitoring my breath today and carrying my talismans to remember that I am capable of as much change as water, that most of my existence is fluid and this dissonance is a result of trying to hold everything still instead of just letting it ride.

So today I'll try riding again, and if I lose my balance I'm going to remember my grandparents and the long line of sailors that came before me who understood water and tides like short declarative sentences. I come from people fluent in the language of water.

thenextbesthing @ 2007-02-27T01:50:00

2007-02-27T23:08:35Z

I'm sliding. I've hit that wall where I don't trust my fingers anymore, and holding my coffee cup in the air is a risk. There are no classes that I look forward to. Clinical makes me feel worse than my classes. My weekends and weekdays are not my own. I have not done anything recreational in weeks. I don't look forward to socializing, eating, waking up, sleeping, exercising, walking to/from anywhere. I am tempted sometimes to scream or cry, but just as soon as the motivation/energy surges up inside of me to actually get that emotion out, I'm bored again. I'm blank again and nothing really matters or is a big deal. There is no difference now between being in class and being out of it.
Spring break is coming and everyone is so excited for it. me? nothing. not a twinge. I can't stay here and I'd rather not go home, not back to nashua and its familiar streets and signs and smells. not nashua- the ex that still makes you ache. That whole city is heartbreak. And for the first time it matters less that there will be no one to go home to, because spring break will basically just be a week without structured classes, not a week without the work. I'll be lucky to get it all done.

I've never felt so incapable, so ridiculous, so foolish, so inconsequential, or so unintelligent. For the first time in five years I have the feeling that I actually cannot do this. That I don't have the intellectual or emotional stamia for this. I am just NOT cut out for this. that I am in way over my head... and all I want to do is hide.

thenextbesthing @ 2007-02-22T01:30:00

2007-02-22T22:38:16Z

Today they cut down my favorite tree on campus. At 2 they were just trimming the branches, by the time I got out of class at 5 the whole tree was gone. They left big chunks of the trunk and branches on the ground, and coming home to them felt like stumbling upon a murder scene. It just looked so violent, seeing a tree that Alex and I named and talked to everytime we passed dismembered like that. I got to my room and cried.

We had made that tree into a friend, and even though it wasn't as if we regarded it as an actual person, it was still something made us smile everytime we talked about it and now it's gone.

I don't know why it is hitting me so hard, but it is. and I miss that tree. tonight when I walk to the dining hall I'll pass it's remains and there won't be anything to wave to or say hi to, just the pieces left behind by whoever brought it down.

blargh

2007-01-28T02:13:57Z

Aside from feeling like I'm having an AMI, things are going steadily. Saying things are going steadily really gives the false impression of control, but saying things are "good" would miss the mark.
I mean, I really enjoyed taking care of children instead of adults on Thursday... but is it good that the children I worked with are as young as 18months old and enrolled in hospice because they have cancer? I loved holding babies and rocking them in the slower minutes between assessments, but is it good that they're there to hold because they were born addicted to narcotics? not really. it would be weird to say that things are good. not to mention that pulling two 14hr days this week really left me with zero time to get the work done that needs doing...

anyway. things are moving along. I have 3 tabs open right now:
"Update Journal"
"YouTube- Very Excited Pug"
"Acute Myocardial Infarction"

I reckon that about sums up my life.

I'm trying not to think too much right now because I don't have the time to really process all the weird "am-I-back-in-ninth-grade" feelings that have been riled up lately.

pediatrics is going to be emotionally challenging. maternity is going to be gastrointestinally challenging. jesus christ. there is a BUCKET of placentas (individually wrapped) in the soiled utility room at DHMC.
Please, the next Monday you are considering how bad/busy your life is, just remember that I'm pulling a 16 hour day on a floor with a bucket of placentas. It may not make your life better or easier, but at least you dont have to worry about a bucket of placentas. And shit, that's something.

I have 3 externships to apply for. DHMC, Wentworth-Douglas, Exeter. If I don't get any of them there's always LNA or LPN work to be done.

ps. in 16 weeks I'll be an LPN, a licensed practicing nurse. in 16 weeks I'll be a legitimate nurse. I will most likely make you address me as Nurse Kim. Expect it.

pps. in 16 months I'll be an RN. this isn't something we're going to discuss.

best compliment of my life

2007-01-05T00:56:04Z

"If anything could make me believe in god, it would be you, because it's too hard to believe that humans have evolved to be as loving and caring as you are."

I envy no one. This contented happiness goes marrow-deep.

It is finally snowing

2006-12-30T18:04:36Z

It's snowing! and it isn't some half-assed hesistant snow. This is snow with some backbone and determination. The kind of snow the military would like. Bush + Cheney for eternity.

It's the season of the "end-of-the-year-reflection/summary-post." a time honored tradition.

Globally a LOT of shitty things happened. So I'm going to do a microscopic view of the year and focus in on my own nothing of a life.

In 2006 I worked in Exeter hospital and at the Eliot, having my first go with real people in the role of "nurse"- too many life changing stories to list here, luckily I've cataloged most of them along the way. Each side of my family suffered the loss of a wonderful person. I spent a lot of time with a four year old girl who awakened a lot of playfulness and patience in me. I got a life-affirming tattoo. I survived a semester that I was sure would bring me down (with three As and a B+ no less). I recovered from my semester of being an RA, climaxing with a confrontation with UNH administration.
My faults are all intact, with the exceptions being: I'm not as closed off or reluctant to share myself and I'm a little less elitist. I didn't write anything at all, not even the random little phrases and sentences that used to pop into my head. I successfully became a UNH-Nursing Dept approved robot without the energy or vocabulary to write anything creatively. I nurtured a hamster into obesity and read very few things that were not nursing textbooks. I should probably mention something here about Alex and how much growth happened in our relationship, but honestly, it will just come out sounding really phony and mushy because my writing has atrophied. But he's fabulous, we're fabulous, I'm glad he can still put up with my insanity and that we both sometimes do the robot with no warning at all.

2007 will mark the end of my formal classroom-based undergraduate education, which is really trippy to think about, so I'm avoiding thinking about it while I anxiously anticipate it. a fifth year will bring me my masters, and I'll be a step closer to being a nurse practitioner... which is terrifying. Who would have figured I'd actually follow through on the life plans I had in eleventh grade? Gross. high school never happened, except for the good parts like Eli.

In closing, the words of a 4 year old
Me: Why don't we make some Happy New Years cards?
Bean: Yeah! Cards that say "thank you"
Me: Who do you want to thank?
Bean: The whole wide world, of course!
Me: Oh! what are we thanking them for?
Bean: A great year!

Here's to 2006.
May 2007 have twice the coffee and half the faults,
Kim

thenextbesthing @ 2006-12-26T00:37:00

2006-12-26T06:05:06Z

I could go into a lot of detail about Christmas, the lovely things that people were kind enough to give to me, how the food was, blah blah blah, but honestly? All I want to say is that I love my family (all faults included), I absolutely adore Alexander Evangelou (above and beyond adore), and Caitlin Vaughan is one of my all time favorite people (soulmate, duh).

but yeah... that Alex, I'm telling you. He is a treasure of a human being.