Coping with death is hard, period. There’s not a single easy thing about it. I’ve been relatively fortunate in my life thus far to have not gone through a tremendous amount of loss. I have had some very hard moments - I remember learning of the death of my grandmother, Violet, when I was 10 I believe. I never got to know my grandmother incredibly well, but I will always recall fond memories in her Naples condo, playing with Barbies, trying wheat germ for the first time, and visiting grandma at the Publix bakery where she worked. I'd always send my grandmother letters and she'd send cookies and the sweetest gifts back. I remember the last letter I sent, with new easter photos; ones with a real white bunny. Mom had reminded me to do so. I remember that my grandmother got the letter the week she died. Mom told me when I got home from school that day, and I spent the afternoon crying in my closet. I'd experienced a few other deaths from that point on - but none from people terribly close to me.
The environment I work in is a difficult place, in this respect. Life in a nursing home brings you face to face with people oftentimes in the last few years of their life. Or months. Weeks. Days. I remember my first patient to pass away - I remember his incredibly kind daughter, sobbing as she carried his belongings out. I didn't know him well. He had just arrived. But he was there one day, I told him good evening - and he was gone the next. I've had many other patients pass since then. It still hits me with sadness. I think that this is a natural and good thing. I've been told in clinicals to be careful with this; told I have an empathetic heart and to guard it. Not take things home with me. This is good advice. I care for all of my patients who walk through the door. I also know that the nature of my setting is going to bring loss across my path more often than not. Over the last two weeks, I've lost several more patients. One of them was found unresponsive and the paramedics tried to revive them for 45 minutes in the building before giving up. The door to the room was shut all day until the coroner came. I had to help him open the fire exit door to wheel the body out. I hated it. I think I am like every other person who hates death. There is always some kind of loss it leaves behind. Someone hurts, whether it seems obvious or not. I couldn't shake that last one off for a few days. I lost another one to pneumonia last week, and she was incredibly kind. I had just done her evaluation. We laughed in the gym together as I showed her how to do a TUG test to measure her gait speed. I never saw her again after that day.
This post is getting to seem really morbid. I'm not actually sure if it's socially acceptable to talk about all this, but I feel that it's a good way to let some of it out. Because the truth is, it is sad, and it is hard, and it helps to talk about it. Especially as a new grad, I believe it is particularly hard. I think we tend to get more invested than others who are more seasoned and experienced. I think we might take things a little harder. It's part of learning. I believe that I will get better at coping. I believe I cope fine now - but, honestly? Part of me doesn't ever want to get to the point where I shrug off death as though it isn't a big deal. I guess I've just spent so much time seeing how lovely and beautiful the lives of the elderly are to ever truly stop myself from caring and connecting with people. Don't get me wrong, I don't get along with all of my patients, but I believe that being sad is also a way to show respect towards someone's life and someone's memory. And I believe all of us deserve that when it's our time. Someone to think of us. Someone to care.
My own opinions aside, this week was the hardest I've experience so far, though. It hit me like a train I was not prepared for. Obviously, HIPAA prevents me from getting into great detail, however, there was a patient I have been treating since the beginning of October up until now. Really complicated case - multiple medical conditions making it impossible for them to return home alone, but perhaps, if enough progress was made, to an ALF. I picked this patient up following a PRN evaluation a few days into their time at my facility. I was one of the sole therapists working with this patient - for the most part, I ensured that they were on my schedule, as we worked well together and built a good camaraderie. I watched this patient go from not being able to roll over in bed, lift their head off the pillow, or lift their legs, to walking with a walker, over the course of months, because so many obstacles were in their way. The progress was incredible, and it was so enriching for me to see how hard work, dedication, and time spent investing in a patient could truly make remarkable things happen. I remember the first day standing in the bars. Then marching. Stepping! Triumphantly walking across the gym with contact guard assist. This patient took a lot of patience, and a lot of time. They frequently asked for some assist with setting up their room, making sure the heat was on, that their table was in the right place - things I was completely happy to help with (unbilled, of course). When they needed clothes, I'd go down to the lost and found and scour them for clean ones that would fit. I advocated for this patient when others wouldn't. They told me about living through things such as communism. We talked about traveling through Europe. I learned about their whole life over the course of months and was completely in awe of what an incredible array of experiences this patient had had. I remember so clearly the last time I treated them on Friday. I had just learned about the death of one of my other patients, and was reflecting on it sadly. I lingered for a moment at the door as I left my patient's room. They smiled, bowed their head a little, thanking me for my patience. I smiled in return, telling them I'd see them Monday, and we'd try to get out of bed and walk again next week. But... I'm sure you already know where this story is going. I came in Monday and they had gone out to the hospital. I asked, concerned, what had happened. Nobody seemed to hear me, so I didn't get an answer. But they'd been out once before... surely they'd be back. But Tuesday, I came in, and I saw their family cleaning out the room. Nurses hugging them. Crying. And I worried, but I tried to tell myself that it just meant that... maybe they would be in the hospital longer. It wasn't the case, of course. I did find out that they had passed away. I was silent for most of the rest of the day, sullen, trying to hold back tears. That Monday session never happened.
You're always going to have patients that touch your life if you're in health care. This patient was one of them for me. Just... an incredibly kind person. Someone who showed me how important it is to listen. To invest time and to truly care. And if you do that, you watch people flourish so much more than if you didn't show them you actually care. Someone who showed me how meaningful my work is. My coworker, who has been in this world of snf's so much longer than me, chided me a little. "It's the first rule of working here. Have empathy... but not too much empathy.
Or else you'll become old far before your time."
I tried to hold back tears. "I know," I told her."It's just hard. It's just so hard." And I did - I do. I know that's the rule. You can't get too invested. You can't care that much. I have a habit of wanting desperately to fix everyone that I encounter. I know I can't. I also know that I tend to try anyways. And I give things my all. I find it both a gift and a flaw. I think it can make your work incredibly meaningful. I also think it can make you susceptible to a lot more hurt. I'm not afraid of hurt - I know how to handle it. I know stress relief and work life balance is important. Hurt and I have a functioning relationship. I believe that it is healthy to feel it - it reminds us of our own human-ness. It reminds us that we are on this earth to love others and to show them kindness and to care deeply and that no matter how much hurt there is, a kind work or a listening ear or someone to believe in you is always going to be needed. It's how we get through another day. And that's why I'm willing to invest a little more. Hurting means that something mattered to you.
I know that I'm still a young therapist, and I have a lot to learn about loss and handling it and guarding my own heart so that I can have a long career of caring for others. I love my profession and I particularly love this setting a lot because there is such a capacity to touch people's lives in the geriatric setting. I firmly believe that it is a very special opportunity that some of us, not all, are called to do, and I just feel it on my heart at this time in my life, and perhaps always (who knows?) to do so. But it still hurts. And it's still hard. I was hurt. I teared up. I was angry. What's the point?, I thought for a while, even. Is it naive to think that the progress we make with people in this setting matters? Is it helpful if they end up here one day, gone the text. I remember this proverbial question from the first day I entered a nursing home as a student, and my CI told me confidently, of course it does. Anything that betters someone's quality of life is meaningful. I believe that, but it's hard not to feel bitter sometimes at the world. It's hard not to feel angry about the loss. I feel good in my heart about always doing what I felt was right in this case. But I still walked past that room today, glanced in at its emptiness, now sterilized and devoid of any life at all, and that Friday afternoon as I walked out the door following that last session is going to stick with me for the rest of my life.
I'll miss them.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Poor Planning and a Little Regret
I'm packing for our move on the 15th and I always go through this period of time where I get really nostalgic because I start packing the books and then I get to the old memorabilia and journals...next thing I know it's been an hour and I'm still on the floor reading and I have been totally oblivious to what has gone on in the past hour. Well, that's me today. I just finished reading my old journals from before my big move to Atlanta and wiping a few tears and feeling a large amount of gratitude for where I am now and where I've come from. I have several journals; I'm a big fan of writing and it's always been how I've vented over the years. I have one from early 2008 to 2009, followed by my longest kept one - 2009 through 2015, chronicling a great deal of my teenage years, from my first big crush, relationship, family issues, a short period of living with my best friend in high school, and the ups and downs of my life through those years. A lot of it I shake my head at and think, "I was a typical shallow/silly teenager" but some of it really hits my heart hard. Reading about the ups and downs is hard - seeing all the ways in which you could have avoided those by recognizing the signs of something bad is hard too. I read through years worth of praying out my frustrations, being naive enough to think I was being supportive of someone who just took advantage of me, being depressed when things were going bad, and being overly hopeful and giddy when things were going good. A roller coaster. I read an entry from early 2014 today - shortly before my life fell apart and spiraled into one of the top 2 hardest years of my life. It was an earnest letter to the person I had loved for years - practice for the conversation where I had to buck up and finally admit that things weren't working and weren't ever going to work. They weren't going to get better by covering them up with fresh apologies and temporary best behavior. They called out the glaring lack of effort, the skewed priorities, the taking advantage of me, despite multiple opportunities to do the opposite - one of the big times in my life where I was truly honest with myself. And while it always hurts to admit things like that to yourself, it's good for growth, isn't it? I think so. A lot of things in my past still haunt me. I don't think they ever go away. Spoiler: I'm even going to counseling to try and talk a lot of it out. It's been apparent to me this year just how much my past has effected the way I handle stressful situations and how I could handle them so much better. It's become apparent how I run and ditch hard things when I sense any "danger". How I lock away my feelings and push everyone away and try and bear burdens on my own. These are hard realizations to make. I want so badly to be the best version of myself I can be, and for years, I've drowned myself in work and more work and told myself that staying busy is the answer to the hard and hurtful things in my life, whether that's relationships, or dad issues, or hurt and frustration over my chronic illness or the feeling of fighting battles alone. That it's the only way to truly feel like I've done something fulfilling and meaningful, even though I know that isn't true. It's resulted in me putting unreasonable and very stressful standards on myself and those around me. It's all part of life to recognize (and hopefully try to fix) these things I suppose...
Anyways, that's all an incredibly long intro to say, I left my Diabetes educator's office on Friday crying big a** alligator tears and almost had to call out of work due to what I think was the closest thing I've ever had to an anxiety attack on Friday. I felt legitimately upset and unstable that day, and the weight of the world felt like a goddamn wrecking ball that someone had just dropped on my head. I don't get like that very often - I'm usually a pretty calm, easy going person. I describe myself as
"the most Type B Type A you'll ever meet" simply because I am very particular about the key things in my life - work, financial stability, my home, and my relationships - but everything else, as far as hobbies, day to day life, traveling, adventure, actually doing things - is usually pretty laid back. I like to mix spontaneity with organization and "wing it" a little more than I should mostly because I get tired and try to juggle too many things at once. One of those things I'm really Type A about is my Diabetes though. For those of you that don't know, I had started working for a company in August who ended up having the building I was working out of bought out by another rehab company. I switched health insurance in a relative rush, and I did the little online survey that recommends a plan based on your health conditions, doctors, and medications. And... I chose that plan. Which seemed totally fine; I had no issues, until I went to the pharmacy last week to buy my insulin and expected the $0 or $25 copay I had been paying.
And heard a sentence I have come to dread so much over the years. "It's $330 for the one insulin, $400 for the other, and $130 for the test strips... do you have a new insurance card?" And found out that all of my insulin will be full price until I meet my pretty high deductible. You can imagine how that felt after spending... let's count... 7 years now stressing about where my insulin is going to come from, and then graduating, feeling like I had made it to the promise land, paying NO copay for my insulin later last year, and then announcing to the whole world that I was going to make the switch to an insulin pump a week ago.
Spoiler: It felt like failure, and it felt like bitter disappoint, disenchantment with life, and cold, hard worry and exhaustion. It felt like I was reliving the 7 years of my life where I struggled every day just knowing that the next month I might not be able to pick up my prescription. It felt like... almost a kind of PTSD, to be frank. Something about the price of insulin legit flips this switch in me that automatically trigger tears and irrational panic every.single.time. Just thinking about everything I've had to go through to crunch things and make ends meet and just make sure that I could baseline survive all these years while putting myself through school. The past 3.5 years especially. They've been... legitimate hell, you know? I've had to use all of my resources to try and get insulin, and it hasn't been easy. And to be honest with you, sometimes it isn't even the going to great lengths to get insulin that is the hard part... it's just the uncertainty. Of not knowing how you're going to pull it off next. There's no stability and comfort in that. There's nothing that feels good about counting the insulin in your fridge to see how long it's going to last you. The uncertainty wears down on you and it makes you feel like everything in the world is against you and no matter how far you come on top, you're always 2 floors down from everyone else because they're healthy and you're stuck with a pancreas that doesn't work and there are some things you can't do because you're sick or that are harder and you can't do anything at all without a drug that is made ungodly expensive by insurance companies and you have to work for the rest of your life to pay for those... sorry. That was a tangent.
But anyways - it hurt. It hurt really bad. And how did I get into this situation? Quite frankly - poor planning. I shouldn't have trusted a website that recommended insurance and said it covered my meds. I should have read the fine print - that it would come out of my deductible with this new company - I only saw the part where I'd pay 20%. I have never had legit health insurance before last August, so a lot of these things I didn't even know to look for. But now I'm here, and I've begged to change my insurance plan, but the only lifeline I have to even give me a sliver of hope at that happening is the appeal form my company is mailing to see if they'll deign to allow me to change partway through the year outside of the enrollment period. Friday I went to an appointment in regards to the insulin pump only a week ago that was supposed to be exciting and thrilling and hopeful - and instead I ran 30 minutes late because it was early and I stayed up too late, then sat in an office with a very understanding woman who wrote down the one per day readings on my meter because I'm still not out of this rut of hating my diabetes and feeling burned out in ways I can't explain and re-remembering how bad of a diabetic I am right now even though last year I promised I'd get better and then looking at the pumps I liked and beginning to have my eyes fill with tears as I tell her, "I don't think I'm going to be able to get it now... not with this insurance." It felt overwhelming because I legitimately think I need the continual glucose monitor and the pump because I am so unmotivated right now and I really want those things to help me get back on track. I want the constant readings to remind me of my sugar. I want the tighter control.
I was overdramatic, but it was that switch again, you see. The one that just gets triggered with the stress of bad insurance and a world of treatments that I can't afford even with a technically "good paying" job now. I still feel like I ended up on the bottom this year. That I'm not any better off than I was last year. And that's hard. Even if it was my fault - due to bad planning and misinformation and not seeking enough information - it's hard.
So I left the office and got in my car and I cried. I asked what was wrong with me. I cursed the forces that be for giving me a disease that has tested every fiber of my being... from physically, to emotionally. Especially emotionally... a disease that I have come to despise so much that I can hardly bring myself to put in the effort to treat it, but a disease that will kill me if I don't. I don't normally get like this, but Friday - I hated it all so much I could hardly stand it. I pulled into the parking lot at work and grabbed a scrunched up napkin from the side of the door to wipe my face and took a deep breath. "You've got to pull it together," I whispered to myself. "You do it because you have to. Even when you don't want to."
And I did. I wiped off my face a final time, put some makeup on my nose that was red from the tears, I swallowed my tears, and I got my ass out of the car and pasted a smile on my face and I drowned myself in the problems of others for 9 hours and then I went home and I didn't cry again.
Because this is the ugly life of having a chronic illness. And the stakes of just a little bad planning are big ones.
Anyways, that's all an incredibly long intro to say, I left my Diabetes educator's office on Friday crying big a** alligator tears and almost had to call out of work due to what I think was the closest thing I've ever had to an anxiety attack on Friday. I felt legitimately upset and unstable that day, and the weight of the world felt like a goddamn wrecking ball that someone had just dropped on my head. I don't get like that very often - I'm usually a pretty calm, easy going person. I describe myself as
"the most Type B Type A you'll ever meet" simply because I am very particular about the key things in my life - work, financial stability, my home, and my relationships - but everything else, as far as hobbies, day to day life, traveling, adventure, actually doing things - is usually pretty laid back. I like to mix spontaneity with organization and "wing it" a little more than I should mostly because I get tired and try to juggle too many things at once. One of those things I'm really Type A about is my Diabetes though. For those of you that don't know, I had started working for a company in August who ended up having the building I was working out of bought out by another rehab company. I switched health insurance in a relative rush, and I did the little online survey that recommends a plan based on your health conditions, doctors, and medications. And... I chose that plan. Which seemed totally fine; I had no issues, until I went to the pharmacy last week to buy my insulin and expected the $0 or $25 copay I had been paying.
And heard a sentence I have come to dread so much over the years. "It's $330 for the one insulin, $400 for the other, and $130 for the test strips... do you have a new insurance card?" And found out that all of my insulin will be full price until I meet my pretty high deductible. You can imagine how that felt after spending... let's count... 7 years now stressing about where my insulin is going to come from, and then graduating, feeling like I had made it to the promise land, paying NO copay for my insulin later last year, and then announcing to the whole world that I was going to make the switch to an insulin pump a week ago.
Spoiler: It felt like failure, and it felt like bitter disappoint, disenchantment with life, and cold, hard worry and exhaustion. It felt like I was reliving the 7 years of my life where I struggled every day just knowing that the next month I might not be able to pick up my prescription. It felt like... almost a kind of PTSD, to be frank. Something about the price of insulin legit flips this switch in me that automatically trigger tears and irrational panic every.single.time. Just thinking about everything I've had to go through to crunch things and make ends meet and just make sure that I could baseline survive all these years while putting myself through school. The past 3.5 years especially. They've been... legitimate hell, you know? I've had to use all of my resources to try and get insulin, and it hasn't been easy. And to be honest with you, sometimes it isn't even the going to great lengths to get insulin that is the hard part... it's just the uncertainty. Of not knowing how you're going to pull it off next. There's no stability and comfort in that. There's nothing that feels good about counting the insulin in your fridge to see how long it's going to last you. The uncertainty wears down on you and it makes you feel like everything in the world is against you and no matter how far you come on top, you're always 2 floors down from everyone else because they're healthy and you're stuck with a pancreas that doesn't work and there are some things you can't do because you're sick or that are harder and you can't do anything at all without a drug that is made ungodly expensive by insurance companies and you have to work for the rest of your life to pay for those... sorry. That was a tangent.
But anyways - it hurt. It hurt really bad. And how did I get into this situation? Quite frankly - poor planning. I shouldn't have trusted a website that recommended insurance and said it covered my meds. I should have read the fine print - that it would come out of my deductible with this new company - I only saw the part where I'd pay 20%. I have never had legit health insurance before last August, so a lot of these things I didn't even know to look for. But now I'm here, and I've begged to change my insurance plan, but the only lifeline I have to even give me a sliver of hope at that happening is the appeal form my company is mailing to see if they'll deign to allow me to change partway through the year outside of the enrollment period. Friday I went to an appointment in regards to the insulin pump only a week ago that was supposed to be exciting and thrilling and hopeful - and instead I ran 30 minutes late because it was early and I stayed up too late, then sat in an office with a very understanding woman who wrote down the one per day readings on my meter because I'm still not out of this rut of hating my diabetes and feeling burned out in ways I can't explain and re-remembering how bad of a diabetic I am right now even though last year I promised I'd get better and then looking at the pumps I liked and beginning to have my eyes fill with tears as I tell her, "I don't think I'm going to be able to get it now... not with this insurance." It felt overwhelming because I legitimately think I need the continual glucose monitor and the pump because I am so unmotivated right now and I really want those things to help me get back on track. I want the constant readings to remind me of my sugar. I want the tighter control.
I was overdramatic, but it was that switch again, you see. The one that just gets triggered with the stress of bad insurance and a world of treatments that I can't afford even with a technically "good paying" job now. I still feel like I ended up on the bottom this year. That I'm not any better off than I was last year. And that's hard. Even if it was my fault - due to bad planning and misinformation and not seeking enough information - it's hard.
So I left the office and got in my car and I cried. I asked what was wrong with me. I cursed the forces that be for giving me a disease that has tested every fiber of my being... from physically, to emotionally. Especially emotionally... a disease that I have come to despise so much that I can hardly bring myself to put in the effort to treat it, but a disease that will kill me if I don't. I don't normally get like this, but Friday - I hated it all so much I could hardly stand it. I pulled into the parking lot at work and grabbed a scrunched up napkin from the side of the door to wipe my face and took a deep breath. "You've got to pull it together," I whispered to myself. "You do it because you have to. Even when you don't want to."
And I did. I wiped off my face a final time, put some makeup on my nose that was red from the tears, I swallowed my tears, and I got my ass out of the car and pasted a smile on my face and I drowned myself in the problems of others for 9 hours and then I went home and I didn't cry again.
Because this is the ugly life of having a chronic illness. And the stakes of just a little bad planning are big ones.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
2018
2018 seemed like an incredibly long way away when I was a kid. I remember drives to gymnastics practice, talking about how the Aquifer was going to run out of water in 2016, or how all the cars would be self driving, or how Blu-Ray was the way of the future. Life seemed like such a mountain stretching before me, made up of unknowns and things so far I couldn't even imagine them. Even physical therapy school was a world away, not even a thought yet in my head, and even when it was, reading through the requirements for school made it seem impossible. Unlikely. Daunting. Tiring. I get tired just thinking of it right now, because having to go back through it would seem nearly impossible.
And yet here we are. Those afternoons in the gym practicing balance beam are long gone. My aqua blue room and days spent with my friends playing outdoors are distant memories. I feel a wave of sadness thinking about this - my childhood, all of the things I cherished as a young girl, have expired their time in my life, and I only have journals and some old photos to look back on and remember those days. One day, I'm going to wake up and those photos are going to look even older than they do now. I'll be far "older" than I am now. Life seems like an incredibly brief but also a long time, even at 24.
I used to sit and make a lot of new years resolutions. Some I've long since met - others recurring over the years; listen better, don't cut people off when they're talking, think more before I speak (see a pattern here, lol), learn a new language. For a couple years in college, I ditched my new years resolutions and, instead, used to write a list of bad or sad things on a piece of paper. When the clock struck midnight, I'd throw my list into the fire. Literally out with the bad, in with the new and unknown. I used to think I had my whole life figured out in undergrad. I was going to marry my first boyfriend, maybe settle down in Macon if Mercer started a PT program there, buy a house in the country, where I thought I wanted to live. I hated dancing. Wanted to do outpatient ortho physical therapy. Life does this funny thing of slowly tossing those premade plans away. There was no PT program in Macon. Why did I want to stay in Macon anyways? Things with the BF went aside in a magnificently horrendous way. I moved to Atlanta. I don't even like the country, I like the city. By the way, Macon sucks (God bless it, I love it, but it does). I decided I loved Geriatrics. I began dancing and met the love of my life there. Things change slowly, but massively. And the world keeps spinning on and you find yourself thinking of how all those little puzzle pieces came together years later.
Even now, those puzzle pieces are still shifting every day. Things are in play that perhaps I'm not even aware of. Ten years from now, I'll giggle at how "old" 24 year old me thought I felt. I'll have made some new friends, lost a bunch, still be friends with a few of my closest. Heck, maybe I'll even have a kid of my own, but independent, highly career-driven, progressive, 24 year old me staunchly says no at this point to kids or even a dog. Life will change me little by little. Maybe hone is a better word? It's still me - I'm still that same 15 year old girl that sat in her aqua blue room, looking up at her glow in the dark stars at night, dreaming dreams of the future and the man I'd someday marry and how great my career would be and how it seemed like my highschool friends would be my friends forever and how Viva La Vida by Coldplay was definitely the best album ever (dang, 15 year old me was dumb). But I'm also not. 15 year old me never would have pictured life like it is now. She thought she had faced a lot of hardships, and she had, but she didn't know how many more were left to come. Life has a lot of challenges as you get older, and all the things you thought would be so great are marred by bigger responsibilities, risks, and failures. But it's enriching all the same.
I didn't stop to make a new years resolution list this year. But I'm constantly thinking of the ways in which I'd like to be better, and this year, as I'm sure is the same for everyone, was a big year of painful challenges, lessons, changes, and honing the person that I am. I, like probably everyone, am not exempt from wishing that I could tell past me so many of the lessons I learned the hard way. But, future me does have the advantage of already having learned a lot of these hard lessons. This year, as far as I know, does not portend to be one of great and massive changes. Hubby and I are moving into a pretty incredible new apartment, which is definitely the highlight thus far - it has a viw of the skyline to die for, and a view of Jackson Street Bridge, where we got engaged. I remember that night (naturally!) so clearly. I remember Kris looking at those very same apartments we are now moving into and saying that he dreamed of living there one day. Life is pretty cool when it surprises you with fulfillment like that. Other than that though... no major changes expected. I like my job, I hope to still be working there and thriving this time next year. I still adore my side business of face painting and balloons, and hope to still do that. I hope I change, though. I hope I change for the better. I hope I keep striving to dig for new information to make myself a better clinician. I hope to practice more German. Make my finance goals. Keep paying off big dents in my loans. I hope I can still keep practicing to be a better listener. To be a more compassionate person and stop blaming my hardship-hardened heart on my difficulties with empathizing. I hope I'm a better diabetic. I hope I actually use that elliptical at those new apartments. Don't get me wrong. I'm at a place in life where I am confident, proud, and happy with who I am. I've built a lot for 24. I'm financially stable. I have the health insurance I so desperately needed in my teens. I've run a business for years, learned some powerful lessons on communication, and found a church I adore so much that I am actually sad whenever I miss a Sunday there. I've handled communicating some major grievances with confidence to people, lost a friend or two, but felt at peace with how I chose to handle things. I've learned a lot about marriage and sticking things through and how to handle conflict in ways that are better than the ways I previously thought were good. I've learned to be a little less like Jonah in the bible, and remind myself that sometimes, my fears and frustrations aren't always coming from an outside source. They originate from within. And it takes a lot of work to untangle and resolve what is within. At work I've learned, even as a new grad, that I know more than I think. I've handled conflict successfully at work and learned to work as part of a team. I've learned lessons about treating patients and every day makes me better. I've learned that 20 years of physical therapy experience is not always better than 1. I think that 15 year old me would be very proud of my life now.
But still... that's the thing that makes life beautiful, isn't it? Never falling into complacency. Always striving for more. I know that drives us to lead healthier, more fulfilling lives. And that's what I aim to keep doing in 2018. Always striving for better.
And yet here we are. Those afternoons in the gym practicing balance beam are long gone. My aqua blue room and days spent with my friends playing outdoors are distant memories. I feel a wave of sadness thinking about this - my childhood, all of the things I cherished as a young girl, have expired their time in my life, and I only have journals and some old photos to look back on and remember those days. One day, I'm going to wake up and those photos are going to look even older than they do now. I'll be far "older" than I am now. Life seems like an incredibly brief but also a long time, even at 24.
I used to sit and make a lot of new years resolutions. Some I've long since met - others recurring over the years; listen better, don't cut people off when they're talking, think more before I speak (see a pattern here, lol), learn a new language. For a couple years in college, I ditched my new years resolutions and, instead, used to write a list of bad or sad things on a piece of paper. When the clock struck midnight, I'd throw my list into the fire. Literally out with the bad, in with the new and unknown. I used to think I had my whole life figured out in undergrad. I was going to marry my first boyfriend, maybe settle down in Macon if Mercer started a PT program there, buy a house in the country, where I thought I wanted to live. I hated dancing. Wanted to do outpatient ortho physical therapy. Life does this funny thing of slowly tossing those premade plans away. There was no PT program in Macon. Why did I want to stay in Macon anyways? Things with the BF went aside in a magnificently horrendous way. I moved to Atlanta. I don't even like the country, I like the city. By the way, Macon sucks (God bless it, I love it, but it does). I decided I loved Geriatrics. I began dancing and met the love of my life there. Things change slowly, but massively. And the world keeps spinning on and you find yourself thinking of how all those little puzzle pieces came together years later.
Even now, those puzzle pieces are still shifting every day. Things are in play that perhaps I'm not even aware of. Ten years from now, I'll giggle at how "old" 24 year old me thought I felt. I'll have made some new friends, lost a bunch, still be friends with a few of my closest. Heck, maybe I'll even have a kid of my own, but independent, highly career-driven, progressive, 24 year old me staunchly says no at this point to kids or even a dog. Life will change me little by little. Maybe hone is a better word? It's still me - I'm still that same 15 year old girl that sat in her aqua blue room, looking up at her glow in the dark stars at night, dreaming dreams of the future and the man I'd someday marry and how great my career would be and how it seemed like my highschool friends would be my friends forever and how Viva La Vida by Coldplay was definitely the best album ever (dang, 15 year old me was dumb). But I'm also not. 15 year old me never would have pictured life like it is now. She thought she had faced a lot of hardships, and she had, but she didn't know how many more were left to come. Life has a lot of challenges as you get older, and all the things you thought would be so great are marred by bigger responsibilities, risks, and failures. But it's enriching all the same.
I didn't stop to make a new years resolution list this year. But I'm constantly thinking of the ways in which I'd like to be better, and this year, as I'm sure is the same for everyone, was a big year of painful challenges, lessons, changes, and honing the person that I am. I, like probably everyone, am not exempt from wishing that I could tell past me so many of the lessons I learned the hard way. But, future me does have the advantage of already having learned a lot of these hard lessons. This year, as far as I know, does not portend to be one of great and massive changes. Hubby and I are moving into a pretty incredible new apartment, which is definitely the highlight thus far - it has a viw of the skyline to die for, and a view of Jackson Street Bridge, where we got engaged. I remember that night (naturally!) so clearly. I remember Kris looking at those very same apartments we are now moving into and saying that he dreamed of living there one day. Life is pretty cool when it surprises you with fulfillment like that. Other than that though... no major changes expected. I like my job, I hope to still be working there and thriving this time next year. I still adore my side business of face painting and balloons, and hope to still do that. I hope I change, though. I hope I change for the better. I hope I keep striving to dig for new information to make myself a better clinician. I hope to practice more German. Make my finance goals. Keep paying off big dents in my loans. I hope I can still keep practicing to be a better listener. To be a more compassionate person and stop blaming my hardship-hardened heart on my difficulties with empathizing. I hope I'm a better diabetic. I hope I actually use that elliptical at those new apartments. Don't get me wrong. I'm at a place in life where I am confident, proud, and happy with who I am. I've built a lot for 24. I'm financially stable. I have the health insurance I so desperately needed in my teens. I've run a business for years, learned some powerful lessons on communication, and found a church I adore so much that I am actually sad whenever I miss a Sunday there. I've handled communicating some major grievances with confidence to people, lost a friend or two, but felt at peace with how I chose to handle things. I've learned a lot about marriage and sticking things through and how to handle conflict in ways that are better than the ways I previously thought were good. I've learned to be a little less like Jonah in the bible, and remind myself that sometimes, my fears and frustrations aren't always coming from an outside source. They originate from within. And it takes a lot of work to untangle and resolve what is within. At work I've learned, even as a new grad, that I know more than I think. I've handled conflict successfully at work and learned to work as part of a team. I've learned lessons about treating patients and every day makes me better. I've learned that 20 years of physical therapy experience is not always better than 1. I think that 15 year old me would be very proud of my life now.
But still... that's the thing that makes life beautiful, isn't it? Never falling into complacency. Always striving for more. I know that drives us to lead healthier, more fulfilling lives. And that's what I aim to keep doing in 2018. Always striving for better.
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