Come to the Light, Carol Anne

Aleathia says:

     After my vacation in August I returned to work. Back in the ER for the 13th year. To say the least, it has become monotonous save the time I get to teach new nurses how to work in the ER. On my vacation, I enjoyed doing yoga and meditation daily, writing and sewing, and various other creative endeavors. My life has been about self-care and this journey to do something more meaningful.

     Going back to work in the ER felt like a prison sentence. I'm good at what I do and it isn't like the work doesn't have an element of excitement, but it is also very taxing emotionally to be "on" 12 hours a day, so I applied for a new job at Planned Parenthood. In my 20's, this organization saved my life when they found pre-cancer of the cervix and I was able to have surgery to remove it before it spread. At the time, I was working two minimum wage jobs with no insurance and had put off going to the doctor for five years until my boyfriend at the time, dragged me down there because he was tired of seeing me in pain. I had been looking for a way to repay this debt for 20 years.

     There had been several coincidental signs that pushed me toward applying at PP. I set about inquiring about financial things to see if I could even afford to make a change. I would have lost a substantial amount of money, but what I thought I would gain was time everyday to do yoga and meditation, daily writing time, a chance to participate in local things on weekends, holidays off, less driving and shorter shifts. This was all appealing. The only thing I thought I'd miss was my writer's group on Thursdays because I would have to work late in Hornell that night.

     I sent a resume and was emailed in an hour to set up a phone interview the next day. By the next week, I had a face to face interview. This interview changed my life.

     Let me set some background. I have been a Buddhist since 1997. I have been a nurse since 2004. Both of these things lend to the betterment of human kind. They are in service of uplifting life and having compassionate care for other human beings. These are distinct choices I have made in my life. I did not go in blind to this interview about the nature of abortion at the clinic. But I have long been a firm believer in women having the choice over their own bodies. Who am I to stand in the way of that based on my own belief systems? No one. I thought that I could handle such practices with all the death and tragedy I have seen in the ER in my lifetime. I said I could handle it, but there were a few things said in the interview that sat with me funny.

     I would have been responsible for things I could not have lived with in the termination of a fetus at 24 weeks. I'm not going to get into details because this post isn't about abortion, it's about choice and realization of limits. One of the interviewers said that helping women through that particular procedure was "rewarding." Excuse me? I don't know. Maybe the writer in me frowned at that word choice, but it jarred me and I couldn't get it out of my head. But they also asked me what I liked about my current job and I talked about this role I have as a Preceptor of new nurses and students. One of the other women asked me why I would leave that? I didn't have a great answer.

Here is what I learned:

Though I am tired of the daily grind in the ER, it is still important work. WE SAVE LIVES...as a team.

The stress of being on point all day is less heavy than the stress of knowing you'd taken lives instead of saved them.

I have a moral limit to the things that I am willing to do professionally. My heart is bigger and more tender than I give it credit for.

If I need to, I can live on less, but I don't need to.

I can make my life more simple by not running away from my responsibilities.

I could not have lived without my writer's group. They have given me back my love of writing. They teach me things both as a writer and as a human being. They are my friends. They are a second family.

I am a lucky and blessed woman.

I have an amazing boss who let me spread my wings towards a dream I thought I had and didn't try to stop me or make me feel bad. And when I found it wasn't the dream I had thought, she welcomed me back into the fold, knowing, someday there would be another dream.


This whole process was extremely emotional for me, but sometimes we need to take bold leaps to get a good look at the place we were just standing in. Sometimes we can see our nose in spite of our face.

Thanks for reading. Be kind to each other.

Aleathia