Senior Year of Nursing School

Folks, I have made it to my senior year of nursing school! I figured it would be a rough road but had no idea what kind of bumps I'd experience. Turns out school was the easier part, and it is still nursing boot camp. Seriously, nursing school is hard but so worth it.

This semester I am taking:

• Med/Surg "Capstone" (my fourth [and FINAL!] med/surg rotation)

• Community Health

• Jewish Philosophy

• Epidemic of Sexual Assault (It focuses on forensic nursing. I worry about this one because it is an entire course about rape and sexual assault. I can always drop it and I've always wanted to learn more about forensic nursing so I guess we'll see how the first couple of weeks go. I plan on emailing my professor to let her know that I have a personal history so that she can advise me to continue on or go ahead and drop the course.)

So, four classes. 2 have clinicals, one is on main campus (the nursing school is banished to the end of campus away from the normal people...), and one online class (the sexual assault one). We shall see how I do with 18 credits, my hospital night CNA job, and now a boyfriend/fiance in the mix. At least he works on the oil rigs and is gone for 1.5-2 months at a time and only home for 2 weeks in between those hitches (time he's away working).

I remember joking to my friends saying I would be okay with a boyfriend or husband that was home for a couple days and then gone for a few months. In marriage, that will be very difficult. While I am in school, this is highly advantageous for me because we have 30 minute phone dates each night and sporadic texting throughout the day and I have time to study and do what I need to do for school. Praise the L-rd! We will see how this juggling act goes; it may be a complete disaster or G-d may give me the strength and ability to make it work, we shall see.

Fiance surprised me by coming home early Friday. He has had a really difficult hitch. Cliff notes of the past 5-6 weeks for him include: a fellow employee almost killing my man by leaving him on an oil rig with no protection during a lightning storm, that guy then stole the company truck when he was fired for almost killing my man, there was an explosion and fiance saved two guys' lives by running back towards the fire to grab them, now he is being sued by the government for saving lives because it went against safety protocol. There were other delightful little gems in there too, but those are the major highlights.

Anyway, he found my roommate on Facebook and started trying to plan how he could surprise me when he came home. He told me he would show up at any time over the next few days, this was on Wednesday I think. I was freaking out! My roommate was a few states away until Thursday because she was visiting her boyfriend and I had been living in my same pajamas for a few days and slept nearly 18 hours a day most days. What if he came home and my hair was a mess and I didn't even have time to brush my teeth? Oh no! Once roommate got back (new roommate by the way, not the one from last year), we had a night to decompress from her trip and get our little routine started. I mentioned that he had spilled the beans that he might be surprising me and that he had said he might have Facebooked her. She said he had but that she wasn't going to tell me anything.

He texted me later Thursday night and told me he wouldn't be coming home that weekend like he thought because his boss wanted him to stay, but that he would be back next weekend. He apologized up and down all night (he worked night shift that hitch). I told him I understood and not to worry about it. I was thinking, "No big deal, he'll be back next weekend and I have a week to get school figured out before he comes home. Okay, we will make this work."

Friday, roommate and I woke up. She and I had planned to go to campus to get parking passes and textbooks before the mad rush of students would crowd campus this coming Monday. She also said she wanted to take me to lunch for taking such good care of her dog while she was gone for two weeks visiting her family and boyfriend. That wasn't a problem for me because she only had me pay half the rent for August in return for watching her dog and I took her dog up to my parent's house so that her dog and my dog could play. There is also a dog door which makes taking care of a dog really simple, as opposed to going for walks every 2 hours because we live in an apartment. So really, I got the better end of the deal. Anyway, she suggested a really expensive restaurant that fiance loves but had told me he wouldn't take me to yet because it is so pricey and it needs to wait until a special occasion. So I knew something was fishy there. I told her she already paid me for watching her dog and that going to lunch there was too expensive so I suggested we find another place to go. She insisted that "we have to go there." She is not a pushy person, so that was clue number two. When we were heading out she mentioned that she had a piano lesson (she teaches piano) in the area so it would be perfect for her to go to lunch there so that she wouldn't have to drive all the way back across town to go home. I asked her if I needed to drive separate so that I could go home after lunch and she told me not to worry about it. Clue #3. I decided not to push because I was already putting pieces together. When we got there and nobody else we knew was there, I brought up me needing a ride again. I asked her how I was going to get home? She said she would drive me home (across town). I mentioned that she had said she didn't want to because she had a lesson near the restaurant. She started blushing and told me to stop asking questions and that it would be alright. I win! I figured it out. So, about 15-20 minutes go by while my mind is racing but I try to keep the conversation going with her about how fiance had told me he wasn't coming home and she looked so sad because I was sad. Then I asked about her trip and we decided to go up to the salad bar and get ourselves some food. I got so distracted getting food and talking for the next 10 minutes that he came up behind me and gave me a hug and I had totally forgotten I was hoping he would come! It was a wonderful surprise and a great lunch. Roommate likes him and says he reminds her of her boyfriend.

She's a really sweet girl who found a guy with a good heart but ridiculously rough edges too. We find solace knowing each other's similar guy troubles because we are similar and our guys are similar. Yet, we both love our men, no matter how crazy they make us sometimes because we see the good in them and we see them trying to be sweet and tender for us.

Tonight the L-rd is giving my heart peace. I am anxious about tomorrow, but the troubles that plague my brain about the events that have happened this summer are set aside. He has taken them. Oftentimes He has to take them back from me daily, but it is getting easier to relinquish them each day. Forgiveness is also a daily battle that is getting easier each day. I am to a place where I believe that ExBoyfriend just made a mistake and I didn't fight hard enough to let him know I wasn't happy with what was going on. ExRoommate and I made mistakes that made us both sad and I am very sorry for that. The words that were spoken by the girls freshman year, my brother, ExRoommate's mom, and countless others over the years were just mistakes. It's all about each of us learning. That is what life is, right? Learning to let G-d have control of who we are and allowing Him to teach us how to model ourselves after His heart? I don't know, I don't know what life is. Right now I'm resigned to what it has become and I hope and pray that there is something more meaningful. I yearn for the day when the L-rd will tell me there was a bigger purpose to me going through this last summer and other people being able to be told that their life struggles (which are far greater than my own) have purpose and meaning. Who knows though? Only the Good L-rd knows and so I will keep my hope in Him and start getting my eyes and feet trained back to His path because I got a bit sidetracked and turned around.

My Skeleton Has Scars

Today's post is a really hard one to share. It is not happy, not even a little bit. These are my raw thoughts. My heart has crumbled, it has blown away. Who I was a few months ago is not even able to be revived, she's gone. Instead, the skeleton left behind is in pain, it is broken, and it has no option but to hang on to the grain of hope that someday something will come of this. Someday I pray there is beauty from these ashes because right now I'm not seeing it as a possibility. So here is my post:

Today the urge feels a bit stronger than I am. It started about nine years ago, maybe ten years now. For a while I just gave in. I tried to go with it because I am not strong enough to fight it.  I did what it wanted. Between scars, pills, anger, and the like, I went with each wave.

At some point I stopped. Well, I went to camp. I was forced to go to camp. I despised church camp and the church I went with.  The fights between my mom and I grew as she continued to make me go to church and also the extra activities that came up along the way. Great. Each one physically pained me. I went to church each Sunday and Wednesday for months, fighting back tears of rage and doing my best to avoid talking to anyone. I was pretty good at it too, people stopped trying to talk with me and they let me serve with the children because that was the only place I seemed even slightly happy.

Today the memories and the thoughts are piling up. Three sessions of therapy did nothing. I was classified a “crisis”. Yes, they flat out told me I was a crisis case. Awesome. Counseling didn’t do anything. I spent hours in an office saying whatever happened to pop into my head. I do not like talking. I do not like babbling. Therapy was all about babbling. My counselor called back yesterday to set up another appointment. It didn’t seem like a good use of money so the appointment was declined and she took me off the list.

A month after it happened, I met my current boyfriend when I was out dancing. I was sitting on a stool watching everyone else dance by, jealous that nobody asked me to dance. That wasn’t new to me though, it was just confirmation of the things I’ve been able to accept years ago. He came and asked for a dance. I said ok. We had small talk during the dance like names, occupations, where we are from. It was great. After the song I walked off the floor and he tried to start up a conversation. Actually, he stood there and didn’t say much while I tried to keep up the conversation so I would seem rude. After about 10 minutes I got bored and told him to have a good night and come ask me to dance later, if he wanted to. He said okay and I walked off. I rejoined my friend that I had come there with and we talked for about a half hour. He returned and asked for my number. Being an idiot and super excited a boy asked for my number, I gave it to him. He waited two days to text me. I was convinced he forgot about me, after all, he had forgotten my name when he came back to ask for my number. Red flag.

We’ve been dating three months. We got engaged a month ago. I know, engaged after a couple months of dating, I must be crazy. I am.

How did I get engaged so quickly? I’ve been making poor choices. One such poor choice was going out dancing with my boyfriend and a huge group of my friends. I’ve done it before and managed to stay safe. I know my limit of four drinks and I stick to it. The boyfriend and I had had a fight earlier that day about sex. He wanted it, said he needed it, and I wanted to wait for marriage. We’ve had this fight dozens of times and we never reach a common conclusion. He hears what he wants, I cave because he begs and pleads and whines. That’s how I got into a rough situation a few months ago, same exact formula. I had plans to stay at my brother’s apartment that night. Boyfriend wanted me to stay at a hotel with him but I told him no. He kept bringing me drinks. He knew my limit too. He surpassed it by several drinks. Joke’s on him, I ended up blackout drunk and threw up in his truck, several times. He took me to a hotel, telling my friends that he would take care of me, and he did.

I woke up the next morning naked, next to him. He tells me I started the sex. He had stripped me down to get me showered off, so naturally he stripped down too. Then he says he tried to put me to bed but I climbed on top of him and started having sex with him. That sounds nothing like me and I don’t remember much of the night. I was the crazy prude who didn’t want to kiss anyone until she could kiss her husband on her wedding day when the Rabbi told him to kiss the bride. I was the girl who didn’t want to hold hands until she was engaged. I was the girl who wanted to date for at least a year and then be engaged for at least a year before getting married. My life isn’t supposed to be like this!

We fought about that night. I tried to break up with him. He knew how I felt about sex before marriage. He is twice my size and he was in his right mind. He was the one who had brought me drinks. He knew my past and he had heard my story. He saw tears streaming down my face when I finally verbalized what had happened with the last one. He promised he would take care of me. After my 30 minute break-up speech, he talked me into staying with him. He told me I am amazing. I told him I am used goods and he told me that it wasn’t his fault; I was the one who started it.

I believe him. That makes me question the first one. Maybe I’m just some girl who wants to be the victim so that she doesn’t have to own up to her own mistakes.

At my grandfather’s funeral, I learned that my dad had been married before my mom. I was about six. The next few years revealed that they got married after I was born, because I was born. Neither of them have been happy married; it doesn’t take an adult to see that. They got married because of me. If I had not been born, they wouldn’t have been stuck with each other.

If I had not gone to the small town dance New Year’s Eve, maybe I would have a completely different life right now. Maybe I would be whole, maybe I would be pure, and maybe I would still have a future. The “maybe game” does nothing but give me panic attacks these days. I used to be able to play it and imagine a life with a loving husband, children, animals, land, and a career that I love. All surrounded by my family and his family and all of us get along great and everyone is happy to see each other when we visit.

Today I am resigned. If I marry this man I am engaged to, I pray it is a happy marriage, but I do not want children anymore. If he leaves me, I will be strong enough to make it in life on my own. I will not subject another person to being in a relationship with me. The man that I have prayed for deserves someone that is whole and pure and lovely. The woman I strived to be is dead. So today, I am tired.

I am tired of the mask I wear when people ask me about my first breakup. My family knows the guy and his family well, they all live in a small town together. I ran into his mom when I was doing clinicals at a local hospital and she informed me he told her we broke up because I was planning on going to Texas to work when I graduated. That makes the breakup my fault instead of his because it was easier for him to explain it that way instead of telling his family the truth.

My dad doesn’t know why we broke up. He told my mom that I am just being dramatic. I probably am.

My brother told me that people go through things that are much worse than what I’ve gone through so I need to just get over it. I do.

My mom told me I need to stop being alone with boys because bad things keep happening. She’s probably right because both of these bad situations have been my fault.

My mentor told me I was silly when I told her I wanted to wait for my first kiss until my wedding day. Then she questioned if I was sleeping with my first boyfriend when he raped me. That shows she believes it was my fault, because it probably was.

My friends tell me I need to break up with my current boyfriend/fiancé. They don’t think I can run my own life or make my own decisions.

Boyfriend thinks I don’t give enough to him. He says he changed his whole life for me because he saw me and fell in love. He says I haven’t changed anything for him. I told him he doesn’t have to stay and he says he does because he loves me. This is fight #7364 about me not putting out. He gets mad I am going to have too much time taken up with class, clinicals, homework, and work which will leave me no time with him. However, he thinks I should be spending every night with him, otherwise I’m the one tearing us apart. I probably don’t submit enough, I’ve already slept with him and who needs to be a nurse anyway. I just need to work on time management.

The urge to just slip away and no longer be here is getting stronger. I’m being pulled limb from limb, drowning, burning alive, and suffocating under the weight of this life. Yes, there are so many ways I could make my life easier, for now I feel like the L-rd is telling me to sit still and let things happen as they happen.