Real life

I used to be a nurse working in OR. A very scary place, surgery. Mistakes are not tolerated because they can kill people which is always a bad way to spend a day. The stress level was high, but the work was different than the five years I spent in ICU. Altogether, it was easier.

But many of the women I worked with would get consumed by the trials and tribulations of the workplace. I was the person who would pontificate from the middle of the break room, "This is not our life, this is how we pay for our real life, on the outside." It was true. My real life was not inside a hospital. Although I was good at my job and loved it at times, it was not my life. It was my paycheck. My life was outside the walls of antiseptic smells.

I don't know if men see their jobs in the same way as women do. I think that men are more identified with their jobs and especially their job titles. Perhaps this is changing, but the men of my generation and older seem extremely aware of job status.

I didn't used to think that I was that concerned with my life on the inside. I knew that the most important part of my life was not spent earning money.

Now that I'm not earning any money, I feel like less of a person. I'm not the same value to myself, let alone the world at large.

Every Thursday, I volunteer at the local hospital. I give them four hours of my time. I was hoping for a desk job where I could monitor the visitors or something like that. Instead I'm working in the pre-op holding area. It may be too close to home. I spent most of my nursing career in surgery. I know what is happening around me, but I'm in a low status position and have little ability to do anything about any of it.

I work with dedicated women who know their jobs and they know that I used to work in OR. I keep thinking how much more of a contribution I made then and how nice it might be to contribute again. And then I think of the years of migraines and medication that have simply disappeared since I stopped being a nurse.

Perhaps more of my life was tied up inside the walls than I thought. Or perhaps I'm looking through the lens of remembrance rather the lens of reality. I know that I could renew my license and be back to being a nurse in a relatively short time. But I don't want to be a nurse again. I think. But I sure liked making a difference.

I know that I'm simply going to have to find a way to feel like a contributing person again. That probably means getting a job. A meaningful job would be even better. The volunteering I've always done, from working in the grade school library and being a lunch room mom, to running for Board of Directors at a community theater, add a bit of luster. But what I really want is to feel needed again.

I guess I will have to start looking at the help wanted pages.