I have been writing poetry for many years, some of it better than others. Slowly, I began getting a pile of words together that I liked the most. 

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Tuesday night, solace and white wine

I did have to go and tell the whole blogosphere that I could shine anywhere, didn't I? What a jackass. Work has been grueling. Defeating. Overwhelming. Today I had to fight the urge to flee the building. I have a stack of paperwork thick enough to provide a comfy cushion for my elbow, thanks to a system upgrade which has rendered me even less computer-adept than I was before. Left work at 5:30 after shoving the pile of un-processed papers in my drawer for the night. Went by the grocery store where I dropped $83 and some change like it was nothing, then drove over to the mall to pick Maddie up and then back to the ball field for one more pickup. But Hunter needed a ride home so I did that, praying my groceries would not be a soggy blob by the time I made it home. I threw a little unhealthy convenience food at the kids and plopped down at the computer with a glass of cold wine and let myself go numb. Numb is how I feel after a day like today. I try to think of a friend of mine, who has a job she hates but somehow never seems to lose sight of herself and keeps her spirit intact and travels out of town on her weekends off and just generally inspires me. What drives her that doesn't drive me? I desperately want to know. I disappoint everyone around me.

Finally, the kids have grown bored of waiting for me to get off the computer and they go put a movie on. I am glad. I just want to be alone after dealing with people all day. Joe is out of town and so Nora will want to sleep with me tonight. I'll be in bed by 9:30. I am a shell.

I have a chapbook of poems being published and I am happy. I feel unworthy but glad. I have written nothing recently. I want to but my mind, it's so tired. How to balance it all? The things I do all day give me things to write about, but they sap me so much that I can't write about them.

And too many uses of the word "I." It makes me nauseous.

But when I am drawing up a joint injection and the milky Kenalong is mingling in the syringe with the Lidocaine and I change the needle out like I've done it all my life and the Asian doctor says something that sounds like "trichantery" and I know she means "trochanteric"- it's like maybe it's all meant to be. Maybe.

Calling

Maybe it's just the weather. We've got balmy upper 70's here in the Burg this week and the sun is seeping into every sour crack in me and filling me with light. In just a day or two, it seemed like the grass became lush and we have propped up those windows which we can get open in our antique house.

So maybe it is just the weather but I feel as though I had a revelation today. I've been having a lot of angst recently over what I am "meant" to do as a nurse and what type of nursing field I "belong" in, and the whole death of the dream I had for so long of spending my life working with pregnancy and birth. If it's a "calling" I am looking for, I have to look at all the things I have done up to now that have felt right to me. Being a mother. Being a birth assistant and educator. Loving people with Alzheimer's. What becomes clear to me as I think on these things is this:

It is my calling to take care of people.

That is what I do. It's what I've done for most of my life. And if caring for people is my calling, then I am fulfilling that calling no matter who I am caring for. They don't need to be pregnant. Or breastfeeding. Or old. Or any other particular thing. I think I am meant to care for people, and to grow as a person as I serve people and listen to their stories and put a hand on theirs and really hear them. A calling is never something that you choose. Your calling always chooses you, in some way.

Today, that feels really peaceful. Like maybe I can shine anywhere as long as I keep my focus on my calling.

Saturday

I had lunch with a friend yesterday. We had not been out together in quite some time. It is something to have a friend that you can always pick up where you left off with, despite time or distance. We had lunch together at a local fundraising event and then went for coffee. She knows that I'm going to get a plain old cup'o'coffee and I know she is going to choose an exotic soup from the lunch choice. It is good to have a friend that you don't have to explain a lot of things too. We have a lot of similarities, and also enough differences to keep our relationship rich and varied. She is someone I can throw out the name of a rare disease to and she will know of it. I had put my camera in my bag on the way out, intending to get a picture of the two of us together. We have so few, and the days so short. But I forgot. I always forget.