I’m supposed to be studying and I’ve got dinner on the stove, but I had to get this down before I forgot. Week 3 of nursing school is in the books and my brain is thumping against every bone that comprises the skull! I’ll spare you the names of the skull, but suffice it to say, there are quite a few. In any event, each passing day has found me a little less weepy, still just as stressed, but still getting up and putting one foot into my nursing uniform at a time — and no, there won’t be any photos of me in that finery at all.
I have asked for prayers of perseverance, peace of mind, fortitude, courage and determination from everyone I know. I have a great support system in DH, in my parents and brother, in my dear, dear friends and family. My 87 year old grandmother told me to go ahead and cry out my stress because, “that’s what I do, and then I feel better, and then I just keep it moving.” I refuse to have a pity party for myself because I’m tired or because I’m a mom or because I want to be doing something else. What I really want is to be a nurse. It took me some time to arrive at this conclusion; it’s going to take me some time to arrive at my goal. I just have to keep telling myself that.
I’ve put a lot of request out there for folks to send me positive energy and to think of me and hold me up to the light and all of those things. Truly, I am so grateful. What’s more is that I see how diligent everyone has been with their support. It’s overwhelming and humbling. It make me want to do even better than I already plan to do.
There have been days in the last three weeks where I have really wondered what I’m doing getting up at 4:30 in the morning to study and then be out the door by 6:15am to spend the whole day in the lab and library. I was getting Mo ready for school the other day and was telling her that I had school that day, too. I mentioned how I was nervous about school and she asked me why. I said, “Well, there are a lot of new things to learn and I’m a little scared.” She looks at me and says, “Mom, don’t be afraid to try something new.” Out of the mouths of babes, right? But that’s what I mean — just when I feel like I’m about to hit a wall or fall flat on my face, I get a message. It’s an off the cuff remark from a 4 year old or an encouragement card in the mailbox from a friend a quick thinking of you note email from a buddy.
When I verbalize to myself (yes, I talk to myself) what my anxieties are, what keeps me up at night, and whether or not I can suck it up and just keep pushing, I get a message — a phone call, a card, a text, someone is thinking of me, thinking that I am the bee’s knees and am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for. It’s like being re-charged and I’m able to keep moving forward.
My train of thought is getting derailed (probably because dinner is going up in smoke), so what I really want to say isn’t coming out as fluidly as I’d like. Ultimately, I am working harder than I have in a long while, exercising my brain in ways that I haven’t before, and balancing a number of responsibilities on my shoulders. Still, my support system is immense, incredible and indispensable. My drive and desire to do well and graduate in two years is strong. Having that knowledge and power on my side, there is nothing I can’t accomplish.
School has started and I am up to my eyeballs in reading. I have a hot second to give an update. Suffice it to say, things have changed since I was in undergrad. I’m a lil’ stressed — no, I’m a lot stressed, but I survived week one. Just 15 more to go until the end of the semester (which is probably when I’ll blog again). I gotta put my nose to the grindstone, but I’ll miss you guys, of course. See you then!
So, this week I have been at orientation for school. Every day from 8am to 12pm, I’ve been bombarded with expectations, available resources, best practices, course scheduling, long-lines at the bookstore and fractions. Yes, fractions. I knew that there was some degree of mathematical knowledge involved with nursing, but to be slammed with the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions at 8am on a Monday morning is cruel and unusual punishment.
Now, I’m a Type A personality, an endearing character quirk that has consistently served me in good stead ‘lo these 30 years of mine. Before going back to school for anatomy last year, I invested in a teach-yourself-math workbook. Notice I said “invested in”, as opposed to “opened and used”. Yeah, that joker sat pristine for the past year on a shelf in my closet until about two weeks ago. In the orientation packet, there was one brief line about a math assessment and seriously, I saw my life flash before my eyes. And then I remembered the work-book. So I pulled it out, blew the dust off of the cover and started Chapter 1, Basic Mathematics. Then Season 1 of True Blood came in the mail on Netflix and well. . .here we are.
Math and I have never gotten along. In fact, one of the lowest grades I ever received was in math. In more fact, aside from getting a violation for talking in Chemistry, the only other mark on my school discipline came from my algebra teacher. I had long come to the realization that I had a bad attitude towards math. I didn’t get it, therefore, I didn’t like it, therefore, I chose to just eke out passing grades and deal with it later. Shocking, I know, but truly, I couldn’t stomach it. So, having embraced that mentality, I thought nothing of sticking whatever fiction book I was reading into my algebra book and reading that during class. Of course, the teacher had been calling on me, I hadn’t been paying attention and the charade came crashing down like my test scores over the semester.
How bad did it get? How about in sophomore geometry, when we were learning proofs, I put CPCTC for every answer on a test. Every. Single. Answer. I just looked at those proofs and knew absolutely nothing.
Fast forward to my A&P class first semester last year. My professor was talking about how tough the course was going to be, how the attrition rate was astronomical, and so on and so forth. She then went on to say that if we had a good attitude towards the class, if we acted excited when we opened our books, we’d basically trick our brains into retaining more info because we’ve been telling ourselves that A&P was the shiggity! Can you say, “skeptical”?
That little nugget of info remained with me. This past week, as we’ve continued to work on fractions, percents, and ratios, I’ve tried to get happy about it. I’ve tried positive self-talk. I’ve admitted to myself that while Math and I have agreed to disagree, we will make a truce for the sake of my impending nursing career. I will open up desirable accommodations in my memory bank and decorate it any which way Math wants, so long as the concepts move-in for an extended stay.
As the week draws to a close, I can quite honestly say that I have become quite oriented to what the next 24 months of school will be like. Seeing as I already broke the seal on my 60 pound Concepts of Nursing book, I guess I’ll be staying, fractions and all.
So school is all but here. I mean, it’s not even leaping out at me. It’s all up in my face like I owe it some money, plus interest. I find myself doing a nesting of sorts. In pregnancy, around month six or seven, the uncontrollable urge to clean, to prepare, to tie up loose ends and organize your existence overwhelms any other rational thoughts an expectant mother may have. I’ve got the uncontrollable urge to fill up my days doing things — something, anything, occasionally nothing.
I’ve pulled out recipes I’ve been wanting to try. I’ve baked, grilled, and fried, filling the fridge with all kinds of goodies for us to pick on throughout the week. I’ve gone to the zoo, the Botanical Gardens, Busch Gardens, and made a circuit of the outdoor YMCA pools. I’ve gone to the malls, the library, the variety of parks at our disposal. I’ve trolled all over Norfolk looking for mermaids. I’ve read at least half a dozen books in the past eight days. I’ve dug out old journals, deciphering my coded chicken scratch, amazed at my taut angst, quick wit, and ferocious vocabulary. I pulled a wad of love letters from DH down from the shelf and read one each night before I slammed down into sleep.
I’ve written more blog entries in the last couple of days than I did in the first half of the summer. I don’t have anything witty or interesting to say; I just want to feel as though I’ve done something these past several months.
April 24th, 2009. The last day of classes, my nursing school pre-requisites have been completed. The summer stretched out before me, a promise of beaches, lazy days, and shimmering heat. Nothing but potential and possibility. I know that when it’s all said and done, no one is tallying up how much time you spent organizing playgroups, how many trips to the bay you managed, how entertained and occupied you and your family were. There are no prizes for the most overstimulated, over scheduled family. I somehow can’t shake the feeling that I could have done something else, that we should have piled in the car and taken another mystery ride or trip to the zoo. I know there is one more mermaid that we haven’t discovered.
As school approaches, my GI tract starts pairing off and doing the pasodoble. My anxiety is steadily climbing in conjunction with the temperatures of late. I’m wondering if we’ve done enough? Did we have enough fun? Did we get enough sun and drink enough pool water? Did we hang out with our friends enough? Did we get bitten by mosquito as we chased the ice cream truck down the street? Did we eat enough ice cream? Did we grill as many steaks as we could have? And even if when the answer is yes, yes, and again, yes, would I really think it’s enough?
See, when school starts, my defense mechanism for this stress is to shut down and focus solely on the responsibilities at hand: the girls, DH, the house, myself (note the order there — what would Freud or Gloria Steinem say?). Until I can figure out what I need to do and the amount of effort I need to do it well, everything else falls to the ground. When my responsibilities start settling around me, when we turn the clocks back and everything gets thrown into darkness at 3:30 in the afternoon, I’m going to reach into my sack of summer memories. I’ll pull out our first foray into mermaid finding, our margarita and munchies night with the neighbors. I’ll wrap my hands around that brief glimpse of DH whirling the girls in the air, of Mo finally getting the hang of how to peddle her trike, of Co catching her first firefly. Those memories are going to have to sustain me until the next stretch.
It’s going to have to be enough.
It’s funny how Tar-jay has become the hang-out of the toddler set. You are bound to see other mom’s and the occasional nanny making endless circuits of the aisles when our list of activities has reached its unfortunate end. We found ourselves in and among that group just the other day. Meandering from the women’s department into and through shoes, we found ourselves in the toy department. As we passed by rows of puzzles and Bratz and Matchbox Cars, Morgan declares, “Um, Mommy. I need Barbie as Rapunzel.”
“Oh, you don’t say,” I keep pushing our cart down the aisle glancing. “You have a mermaid Barbie at home that you don’t even play with.”
Exasperated sigh that I didn’t expect to hear for at least another 12 years. “She’s broken, so I need Barbie as Rapunzel!”
Ugh, I regret the day that Barbie ever crossed our threshold. I thought I would be able to stave her off for another few years, but no. In fact, I actually invited her in when I brought Barbie as Princess of the Nile home from a consignment shop.
Interesting side note: Barbie a Princess of the Nile was sold to us for $3 at this consignment store. Her box was missing the top and bottom, but she was secured to the packaging, had all of her accessories and everything. Mo was desperate to play with her, so I “freed” her from her restraints using my house key, pretty much obliterating the box. By the time we got home, her crown was snapped in two, her decorative neck ware hanging askance. At home, I put Mo and Co down for a nap – this was around Halloween 2007 — and as I had never heard of such a doll, I googled Barbie as Princess of the Nile online. New, in the box, mint condition, the doll retails at $129.97. I just bought one for $3. Wow.
But, I digress. The Princess moved in and has brought with her Barbie Mermaid, Barbie Ballerina, Barbie Prima Ballerina (totally different from the former), and several other variations of Barbie as mythical, fantastical, and princess-ified. Oh, what have I done?
Back in my formative years, I fancied myself a poet and truly found a voice in sestinas, acrostics, haiku and free verse. I spent a better part of a college semester writing poetry about Barbie and her flaws and faults. I haven’t looked at these in about 10 years put the recent deluge of Barbies underfoot has made me revisit some pieces. I submit for your perusal. . .
Reality Check Barbie
I didn’t know Barbie’s hair was made of plastic
’til I tried to curl it with a curling iron.
Layers of long, luxurious locks
wrapped around the barrel,
sizzled and popped, blistered and hiccuped.
Sounded like bacon frying.
Smelled like driving with my brother —
burnt rubber and hot asphalt.
Looked as though Barbie was going to get a new ‘do,
a much shorter ‘do.
Real short.
So Barbie wasn’t like me after all,
with her dunes of plastic
contained by no bra.
Sold separately
She doesn’t even have nipples!
And what kind of woman shaves her pubic hair,
leaving a cameo as slick as a bald head?
She’s disproportionate.
Any real woman with those dimensions
would topple over,
chest first,
all internal organs pinched, cinched, and punctured.
She has bovine eyes that never close,
biceps perpetually contracted,
fingers that don’t waggle “hello”, make a fist or flip you off,
feet that are arched to fit only the highest of heels,
and a mouth that never frowns.
Is she really happy?
If I had Barbie Dream House
Barbie Jacuzzi,
Barbie 5th Avenue Wardrobe,
Barbie Limited Edition Mercedes Benz Convertible
I might smile, too.
But I like to pout and frown
and blink,
and have breasts that don’t give me back pain.
I like to cut my hair and have it grow back,
even raise my arms to dance.
And way back when, when I was Barbie’s
personal assistant
dressing, undressing, styling, combing
I didn’t kow she wasn’t like me. . .
Isn’t like me. . .
Not. Me.