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.