Finding My Place

When my kids started back at school this year, so did I. As an almost 32 year old mother of three I am embarking on a  new educational adventure. It’s related to my original degree but should set me on a new and exciting path. I don’t remember being this excited or passionate at 18 when I began my nursing degree. I remember flicking through a course book in high school, I remember picking out nursing because the entrance score seemed achievable- not usually a good reason to choose a career path. I had  a few dream careers throughout my childhood- journalism, veterinary science, midwifery, marine biology- it had never been nursing. In my last year of high school I had burnt out. It’s easy to see now in hindsight but at the time it looked like I had just lost focus, gone off the rails a bit and got caught up in boys and the like. I think what really happened was the pressure of being a high achiever for the first ten years of my school life wore me down. I took the pressure off because it had gotten too much and I couldn’t maintain it. The only way to do that was to stop caring. I didn’t care if I handed in my essay for English Literature and didn’t care if I completed my major piece for Art. So I didn’t do those things, convincing myself that near enough was good enough except that it wasn’t. I eventually failed those two of my five TEE subjects finding myself ineligible for university admission no matter what my TER score was. Luckily I had always been able to write and so I managed to dig myself out of the hole I was in by acing the STAT english test and got into nursing. I had given myself a shock though, whatever I had or hadn’t cared about I had always known I would go to university. Nursing seemed enough, not rocket science but a respectable degree and career.

One night I was working at local restaurant while about half way through my degree and my Year 2 teacher came in. I would know her face anywhere, even now. I loved her dearly as it was in Year 2 that my parent split and she was a stable and caring presence at that time. She recognised me too and it was nice to think that maybe I had been a special student to her too. She asked what I had been up to so I old her I was at Uni studying to be a nurse and her response has remained in my memory ever since. She “always thought I would do more/better than that”. I smiled and carried on waitressing, which I was terrible at by the way. It struck a chord I guess because maybe I had always thought that too.

I guess I do like nursing. When I’m asked if I do I say yes, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I like aspects of it but there are things that prevent me from loving it. My first job s a grad out of uni was on an aged care and rehabilitation ward. I loved the oldies, I loved their quirks and their stories, I loved having the time to get to know them and form connections that were mutually beneficial. By then end of my 6 months I had itchy feet. I was young and sprightly and I needed more pace, more excitement, more opportunities to consolidate my skills. Thats what they said and thats what I believed. Next was Orthopaedics and boy did I get the pace. It was fast, heavy and technical work. My knowledge of pharmaceuticals grew, my skills in dressings, IV’s, ports and physio treatments grew. My legs raced up corridors and back, my bladder learned to hold, my heart learned to withstand alarms and crashes. The pace, I got the pace, the excitement and the experience. I missed the stories and the connection. I had a few days with each patient along with a million boxes to tick and sign, never a moment to ask or listen. It wore me down, I feel like a piece of machinery on a conveyer belt. At times I felt used and abused in order to make the numbers and revolve the doors enough times. I moved back and forth, tried maternity, contemplated midwifery, loved the idea of the NICU but ultimately I struggled to find my place in it all.

I caught up with my Uni mates a few years after we had graduated. We had lost touch in the busyness of life and had finally managed to all align in one place. One a supervisor in OT, one doing great things on a paediatric burns unit, the other part way through midwifery following in her mothers footsteps. They all seemed to have found their place and it made it so clear that I still didn’t know where mine should be. I tried not to let it affect me too much, I carried on, had my first baby and worked part time. I struggled to juggle motherhood and part time work wanting to give my all to both and feeling like I was doing a rubbish job no matter where I was. I had another baby and just kept trying to get the balance right while feeling pretty unfulfilled. I was talking to my sister in law one Christmas about the amazing work she does with hearing impaired children and I just felt envious. The passion in her voice as she spoke was something I realised I wanted, I didn’t want to “just do casual shifts” forever. I envisioned a time I would go back to work full time and how the juggle would only be more intense. I had this really clear knowing that if something was going to take my energy away from my kids it was going to have to feel worth it.

So this year, with my third and final baby approaching one and my opportunities to put work on the back burner about to run out, I felt ready. I feel like all of these things were my path to here, all experiences I will carry with me into this new and exciting endeavour. Experiences which allow me to see now that this is where I fit. Six years, potentially, chipping away, sometimes one unit at a time, but getting closer each year to something that I’m passionate about, something that I feel I need to do, something I feel I was put on this earth to do. The most interesting part to me is that my eighteen year old self could never have done what I’m doing now. Though she was curious and interested and has picked up little bits along the way she needed to live all of these things first. She needed to feel lost for all of that time to recognise now with so much certainty that this is it and she will need all of that certainty to persevere and to succeed in this. It is not going to be easy or quick, there will be many challenges and obstacles. People will question and ridicule, they will challenge the validity of what I do, always. That’s where I know now because of all that I have been through up until now that I don’t need their approval or validation. I know what I know. That this is right for me and this is what I am here to do. Patience will be key. I have already had glimpses of how challenging it will be, feeling like I want to be ‘there’ already, where I see it all falling into place and fitting so perfectly. I have and will be presented with short cuts and fast tracks but like I needed all that came before this I just need to go with the process and trust that it will be great, when the time comes.