Friends that become Family

          I remember being told when I was young that "you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family." But as I have grown older I learned that in fact you can choose your family. The friends that you have chosen become your family. 

          Four and a half years when I started college as a lonely and scared freshman I had no idea that within the next 4 years I would meet the most amazing group of people. I had no idea that the friendships I would invest myself in would teach me so much about life, love, and happiness. In only 4 years, people I had never known before became my family. I was able to spend this past weekend with a good few of my best friends from college and realized how often I take these friendship for granted, how little I say thank you and how big of a roll they have played in me becoming the woman I am today. 

          It was a bit daunting moving away after college to a city where I knew no one and trying to make friends because deep down I know that I have some of the best friends that I could ever ask for. I have friends that I consider my family. They are the friends I know that I can call no matter what time of day it is. They are people who will be standing next to me on my wedding day (whenever that may be...). They are the people I will be know and aunts and uncles to my children one day, and hopefully our children will be best friends. They are the type of friends who decide last minute to fly in to surprise you for your birthday. I know that their home is always open to me. I don't have to worry about their new friends replacing me. They have seen me at my best and my worse. No matter what happens they are always there to love and support me. They are my family, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Getting an A in Life

         Recently I have been thinking a lot about how we measure success. Growing up, we spend years in school, 16 in total between school and college, and even more if you go to graduate school. That is at least 16 years of our life where success is measure by how well we do on a test, how many A are on our report card, what our GPA is or whether or not we make the Dean's list. We strive to be told by others that we are good enough and successful. In school, success is based on what either how well we know certain information and can analyze that information. We determine our success based on the grade that we are given by our teachers. It's normal that after years of this system we find it easy to rely on others to tell us we are successful or not.

           But what happens when you are no longer in school? What happens when you can know longer get A or a 4.0? How are you supposed to measure success when there is no scale to measure it on? The fact of the matter is that after college no one cares how many A's you got in college or whether or not you were on the Dean's list. After 16 years of relying on others to tell you how successful you are, that is what you expect to continue after college. It's all you know. The problem is that there are no A's in life, there is no report card telling you that you are successful at life.

           The only person who can determine whether or not you are successful in your life is you. The only way you can get an A in life is to give yourself one. There is no formula to a successful life. Everyone has their own definition of success which only makes it fair for each person to determine their own success. I think that this is harder that it seems. It is often said that we are our own worst critics. If this is the case and we are so often putting ourselves down, how are we suppose to build ourselves up where we can call ourselves successful. As with all things we have to start small. Find the little successes in life and slowly build up. And soon enough the little successes will lead to big successes. It's important to remember that success is subjective, not objective.

         

Life as a New Nurse

           This past month marked my 6 month anniversary working as a nurse. I am no longer a nursing student prepping for life after graduation. This is it, this is life after graduation. Four years of nursing school were supposed to prepare me for this moment, to teach me about what to expect when I started my first job. It's true that nursing school prepares you for life after graduation and gives you a sense of what to expect, but at the same time there are so many things that nursing school can't prepare you for, things you have to figure out on your own. Over the past 6 months I have learned a lot of things and realized at the same time that I have so much more to learn. 

           So, you graduate nursing school and spend weeks waking up and studying for hours to prepare for this one test that you have prepared four year for. This one test will determine whether or not you get to be a nurse and add the coveted RN to the end of your name. Now that you have added a few letters to your name you get to actually practice as a nurse. Nothing is as daunting as finding and starting your first job. You go into work not knowing anyone or what to expect. I walked into my first few weeks at work feeling like I knew nothing and that there was always more to learn. 6 months later, I still feel like there is so much more to learn. I've been thinking a lot about what I have learned so far this year. Here is just a few things that I have learned in the past 6 months.

1. There are no stupid questions. Let's face it as much as nursing school prepares you for working as a nurse, there are a lot of things it does not prepare you for. I like to think that nursing school taught me a little bit of everything so that I have enough knowledge to get by in the real world. I realized when I started my job that there were so many things I didn't know, especially working on a specialized floor like pediatric oncology. I would find myself asking question after question to the point where I thought my coworkers would tell me to stop. During my orientation I was told by my preceptors over and over again that there is "no such thing as a stupid question." It's true, there is no stupid question because any question you are asking is for you patient. You are asking questions to insure their safety and well being. So ask questions, lots of them.

2. You are not in this alone. When you start your first job, you feel like you are alone in this world. But you are not alone. Your coworkers will become your teammates. They have been where you are, they at one point were a new nurse too. They will always have your back and be there for you when you need help giving meds, staying awake at 3 am or just a good laugh.

3. This is a messy job. Nursing is a messy job. Whether it is labor and delivery nursing, adult nursing or pediatric nursing, I can assure you that it is not the cleanest. I love my job, even in all its messiness. I look forward to going to work every day even knowing there is a possibility that I will have to clean up vomit or poop. It's not unusual for me to leave work feeling like I smell like vomit, TPN and Lipids, or tube feed formula. It's just all part of the job. 

4. You never know what you are going to get. I have learned that nursing is one job where you must learn to expect the unexpected. You never know what you will walk into when you walk through those doors to the unit. Yes, you may have the same patients that you did the day before, but their health state could have taken a 180 turn in the 12 hours you were gone (for better or for worse). 12 hours is a long time, anything can happen in 12 hours. You have to be prepared for anything, always be on your toes. You must hope for the best, while being prepared for the worst.

5. Study Up. You think that after graduating from college your days of studying are over. WRONG. There is always more to know, always more to study and learn. In the past 6 months I have researched and studied different childhood cancers, chemotherapy drugs, and side effects. But now studying isn't as much of a nuisance as it was in school, maybe its because I'm learning about things that truly interest me. 

6. Time Management. When you have 4 patients, who all have meds at 8 o'clock you have to learn time management. I think that this is one of the most important things that you can learn as a new nurse. If you don't know how to prioritize your tasks and manage your time, you feel like you are drowning. The only way to learn this is just to figure out your own style, what works best for you. 

7. Coffee is your best friend on night shifts. This one is pretty self explanatory. When you work from 7pm-7am, coffee becomes your best friend. I was never one for all nighters in college so when I went from never staying up all night to working all night taking care of patients, I needed coffee (sometime multiple cups of coffee depending on the night).

8. This job is a HUGE responsibility. This may be one of the most important things I have learned in the past 6 months. Nursing is a HUGE responsibility. Nurse are trusted to care for, advocate and make our patients our highest priority. For 13 years, America has voted nursing as the most trusted profession. Patients trust us to take care of them and parents trust us to take care of and insure the safety of the most important thing in their life, their child. We care for very sick and vulnerable people, we see families at their best and at their worst. Not only do we give medications and monitor our patients, we listen to families concerns reassure them of their feelings and do our best to let them know that they are our highest priority. We insure them that taking care of them is not only a job, it is a passion and a calling, it is not something that we take lightly at all. Working as a nurse is a HUGE responsibility, but it is a responsibility that I am honored to have.




         

Home

          So for the past 7 months, I've been living on my own, building my career and creating a life in Nashville, TN. It hasn't been easy, but I always figured it was something I would just power through, as long I as kept looking forward it would get easier. That's how it's suppose to go right? It's like the little engine that could, you keep saying "I think I can, I think I can" until you reach the top of that hill and it will all get better. Once you reach the top you can look back on how far you've come. But what if once you reach the top of the hill, you come to find that another hill is waiting for you. So, you just keep chugging along determined to make it to the top. The problem is, sometimes saying "I think I can" to yourself is just not enough. Sometimes, you just need to hear it from someone else.

           We live in a time when young adults are told that we are suppose to be independent, do things on our own. We are suppose to find our own niche in the world and not rely on others to do that for us. I think this is creates a problem that many young people face. We are afraid to ask for help, because admitting we can't do it on our own makes it seem as if we are a failure. However, sometimes we can't do it on our own. Sometimes we just need to hear someone say "you can do this" or "I'm here for you if you need me." I have found myself in this situation recently, trying to be independent and do everything on my own. I was chugging along ignoring any problems, putting them on the back burner hoping they would stay there, until they didn't. 

          I've realized you can only put so many feelings and thoughts on the back burner before they begin to boil over. When this happened last week I had two options: ignore it and keep moving forward or just take some time, go home and realize that I can't always do this on my own. It didn't take long for me to decide on the latter and drive 5 and a half hours back to my parent's home.  It's like the Andy Grammer song, "No matter where we go, we always find our way back home." There is no shame on turning to your parents when you need help or someone to tell you everything will be ok, even if you are supposed to be a 22 year old "adult". Not much can compare to waking up in your childhood room, laying around watching movies with your parents, and having your mother make home cooked meals for you.

So lesson learned this week: Even if you are 22 and suppose to be an "independent, working adult" there is no shame on going home to your parents' house when you are feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Attempting to Find My Way through Reading

          So here I am. I'm a soon to be 23 year old trying to find my place in the world, my next step in life and most importantly what my meaning in the world is. I feel like these are things that all twenty somethings ask them self at some point in their life. Us new grads are flung into the world after college with tons of questions filling our brain and no idea how to find the answers. Some of the questions I find my self wondering on a near daily basis include:

-What am I doing with my life?
-Have I made the right career decisions?
-What's in store for me in the future?
-What is my next step in this series of random steps in life?
-Why is the real world so lonely sometimes?
-What is my whole purpose in this life?
-Will I ever know the answer to these questions?

           How does one even go about beginning to answer these questions? I look at them and feel a pit in my stomach. A part of me doesn't want to face those questions yet, but at the same time if I don't start facing them now will I ever? People say that your twenties is time when you most grow, the time when you are suppose to find yourself and find your place in this world. Well, I can tell you one thing for sure. I am almost 3 years into my twenties and still have a long way to go before I know the answer to any of those questions. So in my quest to answer these questions and find my place in this world I have decided to read a book every month. So, I basically googles books all 20 something year olds should read. Surprisingly there are quite a few articles with just lists of books that young men and women should read during their twenties. I composed a list of some of those books as well as other books I have been wanting to read. Maybe, just maybe these books will lead me in the right direction on figuring out my life. Twelve months, twelve books. Here we go.

For those curious as to what I will be reading over the next 12 months, here are the books I decided to read:

1. Gone Girl
2. The Defining Decade
3. Wild
4. Crazy Little Things
5. A Guide To Being Born
6. Never Let Me Go
7. Still Alice
8. Tiny Beautiful Things
9. The Love Affairs
10. Self-Help
11. What She Saw
12. The Rachel Papers

Come Fly with Me

         One of my favorite pandora stations to listen to is Frank Sinatra Radio. Whether I am cooking dinner, taking a long bubble bath, or just laying in bed on a rainy day something about old music just puts me in a peaceful state of mind. Don't get me wrong, I love the occasional dance parties to Taylor Swift and Beyonce, but no music today can quite compare to the old school, jazzy sound of Frank Sinatra and others from that time. Maybe it is because I am a hopeless romantic at heart, but I can't help but find the time of jazz bands and swing dancing clubs just captivating. I would love to take a step back in history to the time when men and women got dressed up in fancy dresses and suits to go to a club and dance while listening to a live jazz band. Unfortunately those places are rare and far and in between these days. So, for now I will just have to sit in my apartment, close my eyes and lets my mind slip away to Frank Sinatra.

New Year, Same Me

            Another year has come and gone. Less than two weeks ago, the whole world said good-bye to 2014 and warmly welcomed 2015. Every December people begin preparing their New Year Resolutions, and come January 1 the frenzy begins. You see posts plastered all over Facebook like "It's a New Year, a New Me!" While I applaud people for making goals for personal health, I can't help but almost cringe at that statement. A girl I used to work with at camp put my feelings into words the other day when she wrote "I like to think that we all have the ambition inside of us all along, it's just a final push that helps bring it out of us! It's not a 'new you', it's the you that no longer let's anything hold yourself back from what you want!" It may be a New Year, but I am still the same me. No matter how many changes I make in my life, I am still the same woman I was 3 weeks ago. I am the exact person who God made me to be. I may change over the next year, but I would like to think that it is just me growing into more of who I really am. I hope that I become more of myself by not holding myself back from doing the things that I love, the things that make me happy and the things that allow my true self to shine. So it is not a "New Year, and a New Me". It a New Year, and I am just the same me. Just Elizabeth.

          I, for one, am not the best with New Year Resolutions. Every year I make all these resolutions like working out every day (like that could ever happen) and eating healthy, and every year they last for maybe a few months before I almost forget about them. This year, instead of making the same old typical resolutions that I always do, I decided to make my resolutions things that actually make me happy. I wanted a list of resolutions that I would not dread doing. So, this year I included things like reading a new book every month, taking a day every month just for me to relax and do things that make me happy, and exploring this new city that I call my home now.

          So, I challenge you (whoever you may be) to make your New Year Resolutions for you. Make them things that make you happy, things that bring out the you that you may be hiding inside. And remember, it's not a New Year, New You. It's the you that you are no longer holding back.