Hard and Scary

I wanted this so badly and I worked so tenaciously to have it. Since Joseph died, nothing has occupied my thoughts more than this goal. And now that it is here and I have been accepted, now that I start nursing school next week, I feel almost paralyzed inside. I have images through my head like a slideshow, full of hope, full of memories and full of hesitation. I have lived enough between the day of Joseph's death and now to know this dream is not going to erase the pain of his loss nor heal the place where he lives in my heart. But when he first died, I grieved as much leaving the hospital atmosphere, the identity I had created for myself there. I was a caregiver. I worked the IV pump and did things for Joseph that would be distasteful to others and I came to feel very very good about doing those things, because it meant I was doing SOMETHING. Letting go of that identity was hard. I am coming back to it now with real training, real dedication. I am coming back to it as a choice and in doing so, choosing to do it for someone (many someones actually) other than my child. For strangers. And I am so humbled by being able to make that choice, so dedicated and happy that I have earned this opportunity. I want it so badly and I am so full of fear. Already this experience is so different from my previous ones in college. I am used to working full time and taking once class at a time. I have reversed that now; full time school, 6 hours of work per week and so much reading and things to learn. How will I not hurt people? How will I ever know everything I need to know? How will I ever pass?

I want to do well. I want to succeed. I want this more than I have ever wanted anything. I feel it down into my soul and I am so blessed that I have a true calling. Please, please let me be up to this challenge. Let me use the memories and gentle hauntings for inspiration and not debilitation. Let me assimilate all I know of the "other side", the patient's side, the family member's side to be the best nurse that is in me to be. Let me settle my mind and minimize mistakes. Let me learn to focus myself, to keep my own goals in mind as I choose how to spend my time. Let me fly.