Originally posted December 26, 2013

I can’t remember.

No, really. I can’t.

Try as I might, I just can’t recall how I felt about becoming a nurse. Maybe my pure, idealistic hopes are buried deep down underneath all the layers of animosity, fear and skepticism I’ve accumulated over the past three years of nursing.

If somebody asked me why I wanted to become a nurse, I know what my answer was and still would be. “I remember the nurses that helped me after I had surgery. I want to have a positive impact on people the way they did for me.”

But wait- stop right there.

When I said that, I already knew I wanted to be an emergency room nurse.

Who did I think I was going to be helping? People with actual emergencies? When did I think I was going to positively impact their life? Emergency room throughput goals don’t allow for lengthy heart-to-hearts.

Was I simply naive and hopeful? Or did I know what I was up against, and I dared to dream that I could make a difference? In the past three months, I’ve been physically assaulted twice by ER patients. I feel abused.  Underappreciated.  Disrespected.  Its creating a yearning within me to remember why I decided to walk this career path.  I can assure you that when I decided to become a nurse I wasn’t thinking about the fact that someday a patient from skid row might punch me in the face.  I certainly wasn’t thinking that a meth head in San Francisco would shove me into the med room because he was so tweaked out he didn’t know what he was doing.  

The point of this post is simply that ‘I can’t remember’.  I am motivated to begin tracking my thoughts and emotions from this point forward. I want to create a small portal that I can use to reflect back on previous frames of mind. I want to see if I’ve made progression or regression. And not just in nursing, but in all facets of my life.  I want to transition into a more conscious way of life.  I want my actions to mirror what I feel within.  

In a years time, I want to look back and say, “Ah, yes. I remember”.