My Farewell to my Nursing Career
I posted and shared this ‘letter’ with my personal circle on 21 February, 2018 — the day after my last day as a ‘full-time’ nurse.
I couldn’t sleep with the realisation of what I had finally done, so I found myself at 2 o’clock in the morning writing it out.
I honestly don’t know where to begin…
I’ve kicked the bucket…
The nursing bucket.
This day seemed like a far-fetched idea had you spoken to me a year or two ago.
“How do people even do that? Only crazy people would make such a drastic move. They must have so much confidence in themselves.”
Then today came and the big leap happened and now I am officially… an “unemployed” nurse.
Leaving behind safe harbour and venturing into a world foreign and intriguing to me was a daydream, just an idea, never a plan.
Until the tiny twitch became stronger and the signs slowly became clearer.
It wasn’t confidence I needed to take a leap of change. What I needed to completely walk away from nursing into the unknown was… a leap of faith.
In myself and in the bigger things I cannot see.
Nursing was a career I settled into and pushed to do my best in. It has led me to meet so many people, hear so many stories, and witness so many miracles that we sometimes take for granted in life — like breathing and having heartbeats.
Not many people are blessed or honoured to see a person take a turn for the better from a surgery that was uncertain. Watch and assist as skillful surgeons cut open and close-up living people to save their lives. Settle down a heart that was beating too fast for its owner.
And on the same spectrum, not many people are blessed to care for an abandoned man because his family couldn’t understand his disability. Hold the hand of a woman who has been diagnosed with cancer. Watch a line suddenly go flat and knowing you’ve all done your very best.
I say a ‘blessing’ to be there for the bad and the good because that is what life is.
The bad and the good.
With each story and with each close encounter to the ‘end’, it became harder to deny… life is short.
Very short.
And I needed to finally be OK with not having control or foresight if I wanted to be able to live and give what I truly feel is “all of me”. To leave an impact in a more meaningful way by my own definition. Not others.
I am leaving behind this role, this career. But in a way, I feel like I am doing it for the people whom I love and respect so much — nurses, doctors, all health practitioners and health helpers.
Because equipped with the insight and experience, maybe, just maybe, better systems can be made. Better patient flow. Better lives. Better simpler things. Who knows.
But it’s time to take a chance on myself and the “what if’s” that lie beyond the unknown.
I’ve taken the leap.
I’ve kicked the bucket.
Signing out… as Nurse Aims.
Saying hi as… just Aims.
I write and share this piece of me with the hopes that I’m not alone in this jump. That if you are reading this and resonating with it, that you know you’re not alone.
We’ve got each other.
