Day 151 Hindsight

This morning, I got stuck in stop-and-go traffic for 80 minutes. Around minute 25, I pulled out my Blackberry, propped it over my fuel gauge, and started watching the Indian epic, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.

It is actually about 6x more epic than this picture would suggest.

...I was honestly surprised that I didn't get to the Intermission before arriving to Day 2 of my workshop. Now, seeing as how I spent most of Day 1 making certain...masterpieces when I was supposed to be working on "assignments":

From top to bottom:

-A pretty tree with animals (I was trying to draw Bambi and made a deer-mutant instead)

-A bird that might be a woodpecker...Probably a boy-bird with that bad hair

-A school of fish going "Ahhhh!" from a menacing shark going "Hahahah!" whose gonna get eaten by a Pacman whale going Nomnomnommmmm

...clearly, I wasn't expecting to make much headway during Day 2. So I found myself pleasantly surprised that I actually managed to walk out of the entire workshop with my head held high and a lightly hopeful heart. Aside from meeting some really funny IT people whose humor sometimes made me feel like I might've found a little more joy in the office than the unit, I managed to talk to a few other graduate RNs; girls whose diplomas are still being aired out until the ink dries. Turns out, I'm not the only one feeling like a complete moron at work on some days, I'm not the only one dealing with strong personalities of elder nurses and doctors who want to grind into your brain that you are worthless because you are young and still get pimples. 


It was an uplifting experience, to talk to others and realize that I'm not the only one going through this mentality. Even better, my bosses showed up (seriously wished that they had told me that before I managed to write a few less-than-flattering things about the floor) and while the cynic in me insists that they were just playing along with the situation without really meaning anything, I chose to believe that they were invested [even for a millisecond] in my success despite my voiced insecurities...

In poker (and most of life) they say you're not supposed to show your cards until the final turn; In the market, my mom walks away if the price the vendor offers is four pesos more than she's willing to spend; In relationships you wait for them to say "I love you" before you utter them back. It's all about saving yourself...from paying too much, from making yourself more vulnerable than them, from losing a game.

And, in most cases, I gotta say, it's a pretty dumb mentality. Thinking like that, anticipating that people are out to get you, that people are going to hurt you or take advantage of you...it's awful. And I hate that bullshit that pessimist give me, "It's just life." No, it's not: it's a few bad people among a lot of good ones doing bad things that you may not completely understand because you just don't want to. In several of our activities, we came to the conclusion that it takes more energy to be angry, to be negative and hostile than it does to be happy and positive. The latter comes natural and easy to us. So I like to believe that I wasn't an idiot to hope and believe in my bosses when the director among said, 


"I've never had a nurse who wanted so much to be perfect by three months." She laughed, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Give yourself to the sixth month, and I promise you that all of it will come easy to you then."

My manager in turn listened to me, nodding as I spoke about how it was hard to feel like I wasn't being acknowledged as a credible or useful nurse, and how frustrating it was that my mentor, the one who was to be assigned to me to talk to when I came across and stumbling stone (more like a bumbling mountain) was on a different shift than me...which makes it kind of hard when I'm having a bad day and can't even bother my mentor because I need to sleep and she's just started working. She nodded, turned to our director and immediately suggested a system they'd once used on the floor but had put off once hires had slowed down. 


As pathetic as it sounds...I felt appreciated, I felt invested in, that someone was looking out for me. That is not to say, that this is necessarily genuine or long-lasting, but I'm taking a page out of my workshop and choosing to assume positivity in the people around me, in believing that not everyone is out to get me, and allowing myself to acknowledge my own shortcomings in the things I'm not ready to change yet something that I realize now I need to extend to my personal life...

They told a story I'd heard before, about a man seeing a butterfly struggling against its own cocoon. Taking pity, the man takes it upon himself to break apart the cocoon, allowing the butterfly to be released. He watched it fly with pride...only to watch it fall within moments.

The pretty insect needed to push against its constraints, needed to struggle to gain the strength to fly. To remove the obstacle to to restrict the growth, is to withhold the potential for the sake of sidestepping pain, heartache, a loss...

I know I'm not healed completely, but I also know that the more time I spend away from being emotionally or physically involved with my exes or the Toy, the better I get every day. I thought that I could be okay if I fooled around a little once in a while, that if I could compartmentalize how I felt away from what I did with who. Truth be told, I still think I could do this. I think enough time has passed that the scab over my heart can be ripped off and be a little raw, but not bleeding; a little bothersome, just not life-threatening. So...I could totally pull it off...

But it's a lot like playing with fire in a room full of explosives: Yeah, it's definitely possible to keep that fire from lighting a fuse that scatters your extremities to 34 directions. And while you think it's possible to not kill yourself, you know how to avoid that particular scenario altogether: don't play. Let's see if I'm brave enough to stay on the sidelines then.  

I think I can.

And so did he