May 26, 2014

I have had the unusual pleasure of getting to know an attractive man, very well traveled, with a beautiful girlfriend, who has such an interesting take on life that I walked for hours today thinking about it. He has opted to not believe in love and marriage, or raising a family, but instead has chosen to, simply put, be happy. At first blush, one might say..no shit Sherlock, but the reality is far more exciting to me. How does one "be happy"? He defines it as fulfilled, not needing anything. He has apparently thought about this, and has enough self awareness to know that those are his terms and they suit him perfectly. His path in life has helped shape his experience of happiness and fulfillment and I think that just contemplating a happy life long enough to come up with your own definition is pretty remarkable this day and age. 
Happy. It's such a peppy word. On a biological level, happiness shows up in the song that I hum, the smile I wear...But how do I get there...is it the presence of something, the absence of something? A freaking double shot of espresso caffeine high?
I know for me, happiness is a feeling of relaxation in my own skin, my own being. Opting to aim for healthy and happy instead of a number on a scale or dress size, has literally taken one incredibly, loud and nagging bitch in my head and stuffed a sock in her mouth. She was incessant.  She was obnoxious and she always managed to kill my confidence. The absence of overly critical, unrealistic self judgment has helped me be happy.
I like to listen to music and get lost in my thoughts. Both activities send me to millions of different places, memories, daydreams, and neither activity is ever the same, no matter how many times I've done it. Allowing myself time to reminisce, delve into difficult and thought provoking issues, to daydream various love stories, war stories, and future possibilities are absolutely among my favorite things to do. I guess that if you had to ask me what hobbies I have, I wouldn't be lying by answering "Thinking".
I have no need for anything. My want list is of course a mile long. I have the means to meet every physical, mental, emotional, blah blah blah need and I'm certain that is a huge blessing. A roof, food, running water...the basics and then some. So the absence of stress regarding fundamental needs helps me to be happy.
Nowhere in this list does my happiness depend on someone else. More often than not, someone else's presence may even be a source of "less than happy" or even unhappiness. I try to minimize that as much as possible, which tends to look like me being short tempered and uncompromising. If my two failed marriages have taught me anything, in my life, a husband is unnecessary. So I would agree with him on that, marriage is not required for happiness.
Ahhh... But Love.
To not believe in love, well, I can't even fathom it.
Happiness is, in its purest form, the love of something.
I will always believe in love. The good, bad, and tragedy of it all. I will not shy away from injustice, inequality or unfairness, all things common with love. Let them come and embrace me. May I feel each pang of anger, each stabbing hurt- and then, I will know who I am.
I'm very open about how I arrived at this moment. Knowing me, reading my Blog, or maybe even sharing in the very sacred parts of my life- you know that I laugh easily and don't take myself too seriously (anymore). I enjoy being a Nurse, an Aunt, a friend, a dog owner, and a sarcastic and witty (albeit bitingly so sometimes) writer. I am tongue in cheek and the deepest of thoughts and I did not arrive here gracefully, and for that I am very grateful.
In the midst of my suicidal days, all those days back, I remember pleading to just stop the feeling of torment. Breathing, crying and praying for death- wearing a fractured soul, having no life in me, but living all the same- those moments gave me bliss. Without that path, I cringe to think how lacking my life would be now. It took being completely shattered to open space up for happiness (not new car happiness, or winning the lottery happiness- although I would be willing to test that theory- those are just fleeting, mortal moments)...but inevitably, being surrounded by the broken and the bandaged, the lowest of us low souls, I was blessed with happiness in ways it would take me years to understand. Without that mental break, I would not have been able to experience the enormous range of joy possible. I did not learn humility by winning every game. I did not learn humor without experiencing sorrow.
I did not learn who I was until I was lost from myself and I would never have known great love until I went all in and ended up losing at it.
So, I do not want a painless life or to learn how to avoid hardships completely. I will not be afraid of a broken heart, or living a childless life, because in the middle of all that living, I will know bliss.

Yours,
Brooke

May 16, 2014

Something happens when you fall in love. It is a beautiful, light, giddy feeling. It's that ridiculous perma-grin you wear around and how you whistle walking through the rain drops. The beloved one, the reason for your bliss has surely been chosen because of the years of testing and trials with others that just never quite worked. A day, a week, a moment into the whole gorgeous thing and flashes of happily ever after roll through your mind. At first they might only be snippets of thoughts and visions, but as you get more comfortable with the beloved your mind allows those snippets to become full on technicolor hopes, wishes and dreams. Pintrest has nothing on the future you've built in your mind with this perfect mate. Happily ever after begins in the lives of two people who want nothing more than to share in the love and joy they have found in each other. So thankful to have found and to have been found, feeling blessed that finally things seem to be falling in place. This is where Love is at it's best. Acting on its best behavior and going through life with the greatest of ease. But I'll-be-go- to-hell if Life doesn't come right along and punch Love in the gut. Life can be such a bully. Demanding and demeaning, Life pulls out no stops to keep the tides turning. Joining two complex minds with rich pasts of various forms of hurts, pains, betrayals, and finely honed lists of expectations, Life has a buffet of ammunition to use against Love when Love is at its most vulnerable. Love is strong and very powerful. It can hold two souls together through the most traumatic of experiences- Love will step in front of a bullet or a speeding car. Love will surrender its last breath for the beloved one to continue on. Now, besides those high stake moments of life and death, the majority of the time Life is whispering in the ear saying nagging little things about what Love should be doing, what Love would be doing if only, and generally undermining Love's feelings of "we" and reinforcing the feelings of "me". Life likes to keep score and flaunt who's winning, which never seems to be Love- it's always the Beloved. Love begins to feel undervalued, unappreciated, and over worked. Life always has that secret weapon, the kryptonite to Love's blissful life- Fear. Fear acts on Love in subtle, sneaky ways. It has the innate ability to put emotions into play that just don't make sense. Fear knows those past hurts, pains and betrayals and dresses up in them as current, massive issues, when in fact they don't belong in the present at all. Fear takes up residence in the backseat of the mind, while anger, doubt, and frustration drive the whole damn train of chaos. All the while, Life skips around sprinkling usual daily stress with the occasional full on crisis to keep Love teetering on the edge of uneasiness and complete breakdown. Now our couple in Love is not living in some tiny vacuum..of course not, they live in the big world with the rest of us- there are families, jobs, coworkers, money, health issues, bills, terrorist attacks, natural disasters and about a million different ways that two people are interacting with the world around them, you know, trying to survive.

Because the two are in their Happily Ever After, they don't think to really DO anything about it in the beginning..you know, because it's just Life. Love and Beloved argue and fight and go forward thinking it'll just blow over, that things will get back to normal, back to that blissful stage when Life couldn't put a dent in Love. But the scorecards keep getting added up, Fear keeps flashing old pain in their minds' eyes and Life exhausts the two. No longer fighting for the same team, Love and Beloved are lost in a storm of Life's creation and they can't remember who "we" were and are struggling to just keep the "me" alive. Doubt in Love causes a bigger divide and can be the knife that cuts through the hearts of Love and Beloved. Fighting for Love when the two are on different teams is rarely the way to win at Love. Love must remember how to win at LIFE. 

1. Be gracious for the day at hand- do not take for granted.

2. Be courageous in the face of Fear, but also be smart. Arm yourself with self awareness, the healing of past pains, and a healthy self-esteem. Do not delay healing your soul.

3. Don't sweat the small stuff. Learn to let go of the perfect for the wonderful.

4. Take care of your health- physical, mental, emotional and spiritual- get check ups in each of these and don't deny needs when they arise. 

5. Seek first to understand then to be understood.

6. Do things that make you laugh...and do them as often as possible.

7. Own your issues and don't blame them on anyone else. Giving someone else ownership strips you of your power to deal with them. 

8. Look forward to tomorrow and have a "tool box" of ideas for making it the best day ever. 

9. Don't do anything in excess- eat, drink, sleep, work- find balance in all areas of your life. 

10. Learn to quiet your mind, control your thoughts, and manipulate those thoughts into loving, helpful, and beneficial thoughts only. Do not believe everything you think, especially if it's hurtful or negative. 

11. Choose to love and be loving, but don't forget to be lovable. 

12. Know yourself, through and through, and love that person the most. 

Dear Love and Beloved-

I know things are awful right now and that no amount of anything seems to make a difference. Be patient, be kind, and don't forget why you picked each other for your Happily Ever After. The best love stories are those of triumph over heartbreak...be each other's love story, but also be each other's Love. 

Forever Yours Truly,

Brooke

May 6, 2014

If I had to pick one thing that has had the biggest impact on my life, it would be that I chose to become a nurse. Now, I didn't really give myself much credit 20 years ago when I was graduating from high school in small, rural Loogootee, Indiana. I just figured I could be either a nurse or a teacher. Nothing else, and I mean, nothing (not even being a writer) was even an option. I'm thankful that my Mom planted the seed of a college education and never let it waver. Back then I was still living inside a zip code. I had seen more Amish people in my life than anyone of a different color or race. Can you imagine thinking that seeing a horse and buggy at the Dairy Queen drive thru was more normal than seeing a Black or Hispanic person?

It didn't take long outside of that zip code to open my mind up to the curiosity of different faces and places. A restlessness grew inside and I took advantage of every opportunity. Have nursing license, will travel- and I did. Looking back, my first trip out of country was to France. I was still in college and I went on a guided tour alone. I'm shocked that my parents held themselves together so well. As much as they had the right to put their foot down, they never really discouraged me from doing anything. Hmmm...I should be sure to thank them again and again and again - but sorry Dad...when you get old and senile, you're still going in a home! :-0

So after graduating college I was out...trust me, there were better options than the one I chose, but in reality, I wouldn't change anything. Back then I was much more serious than I am now- who knew it would take growing up to learn how to be silly, an art I would like to think I have perfected at this point. 

It was because of being a nurse that I have had the opportunity to impact lives, not by medications or dressing changes, but by caring. Learning to make a stranger as important to me as my own mother or father, sister or friend. There are so many foreheads that I've cooled with a cold wash cloth, and hands that I have held in dark, quiet rooms. The prayers, the tears, the inner screaming "God please do something" as I performed CPR on 4 month old Joseph, to no avail. Fighting the good fight, and a lot of times fighting a losing battle, against my will, if my will were ever even allowed a choice. The suffering isn't always in the patient lying in the bed. I believe the majority of the suffering is experienced by those left behind when that bed becomes empty, because the ones left to live on will carry that with them. There takes a certain mindset to embrace the care of a dying patient. I consider it an honor. To be at the passing of a life is like nothing else in nursing. Sometimes it's quiet, expected, and solemn, with families surrounding the patient. Sometimes it's violent. CPR, bright lights, alarming monitors, and loud, urgent voices. Even when studies show the survival rate of someone who has coded in a hospital are only 20% or something, we still carry on the beating of a body into submission for the sake of possibly living another day. When does the body's will to die become less important than the mind's will to live. Of course our mind will want to live, in my mind I'm still celebrating my 30th birthday, and would never think of giving up, until someone, maybe a nurse, or a loved one, reminds me that I am the mind of a 30 yr old, but not the body. What's the saying...It's not the age, it's the odometer reading! Our body is only as strong as it's weakest link. 

Life has unfolded in front of me and destinies have played out. I have seen the best and worst there is and still manage to love my job. I don't do it for the money. Most people I know, that aren't in the medical field, have said "You couldn't pay me enough to do what you do." You're probably right I say. What is the value of a nurse? What is the value of the person in the hospital for 12 hours at a time taking care of your neighbor, your teacher, your grandparent, your child, you? What price tag can be put on caring for those in need? Possibly saving a life, and sometimes not?

I have the answer. 

Allow me to care for my patients, pay me a competitive market wage, and give me the resources and time that allow me to do the best that I can. Being able to make a difference in a person's life is it's own reward, don't crush that, take it for granted, or brush it aside as insignificant. Don't demolish that place in my heart and soul that allows me to work non-stop for 12 hours, giving everything I have physically, mentally, and emotionally. If you commercialize and reduce Nursing "Care" into strict numbers and budgets, supply chains and quotas, you will break me, my spirit, and my love for a profession that is already taxed and damaged. I cringe at the thought of being a patient 30 years from now. I will not have my children at my side, because they don't exist, my family will also be aging, and when I'm there in that hospital bed, the last thing I want is someone who is supposed to be nursing me back to health making me feel like a number instead. And should the time come that the will of my body has met it's end, may there be a nurse there that will take the time to wipe my forehead and hold my hand in my dark quiet room.

Yours,

Brooke