Retired Nurse
Transformation
Friday, November 13th, was my last day working with patients as a nurse.
Thanks to COVID, it ended quietly. Not the usual fanfare, like we used to get in The Before Times. At 5 PM, I closed my work laptop and shut down for the last time. I went to my fridge and poured myself a couple of fingers of Most Excellent Tequila (a retirement gift from My Best Friend) and then…then I exhaled.
Only other Retired Nurses will understand that kind of relief. To have survived your career with your license intact. To no longer be The One responsible for All. The. Things. that alternatively save or end a Life. We comfort ourselves with the mantra we know to be true: No One dies before their time. But yet, there is always a play by play running in our minds pondering “if this, then that…” Could we have done anything differently to have a different outcome?
And now — this week — I set that all down. My patients will belong to another nurse by Monday. I will make my way into my old office space and clean out a desk I haven’t seen since Friday, March 13th.
Did you just see that? How The Universe winds synchronicity into our lives?
Friday, the 13th. My lucky day. Times Two.
Now begins the work of redefining myself. Yet again. Because this is a dance I have done too many…
