She Makes the Best of What's Around

Yesterday Q & I had conversations about everything on the way home. One conversation led to wondering how old Rashawn Ross (cuddly, adorable trumpet player for DMB) is, and that led to a Wikipedia lookup, which led to the discovery that Rashawn Ross was born in 1979: only 2 months older than me, 7 months older than Q. It's always weird to discover that someone you consider to be MASSIVELY, incredibly, mind-blowingly talented is your own age.

This led to a convo about mind-blowing talent; I am not starstruck by people who are just "famous", but I think that if I met someone like Rashawn Ross or Jeff Coffin or someone else who's sheer incredible talent I admire, I'd be a jibbering, stuttering, blushing wreck. It isn't because they're famous; after all, if you had never seen my Jeff Coffin icons, would you know him if you ran into him at the grocery store? He's not famous that way. But for me, running into someone like that at the grocery store, knowing what they do, listening to their music, feeling completely humbled by their talent, and there they are buying milk or mac & cheese or apples or cheetos...I'd probably go to pieces.

This led to another point in the conversation: I want, with all my heart and all the way into my bones, to be That Good at something. And offhandedly I remarked to Q that I'd just never found the thing I felt I could be that good at (or had the specific motivation to), and she pointed out that yes, I have. It's nursing, and specifically trauma nursing. She's right; I want to be known for being that person who stands in the treatment room, waiting for the stretchers to pour in after the multi-vehicle pileup, a rock of calm & not a trace of panic. I want to be that person who wades into dangerous situations and snatches other people out. I want people to remember their close calls and say "If it hadn't been for that redheaded nurse..."

Of course that's never going to make someone go into a pile of jibbering, blushing stutters at me in the grocery store, but I don't really care about that part. No, this is for ME. If I'm that good at trauma nursing, if I'm That Nurse, then maybe I wouldn't feel like I'd go to pieces if I met someone with that kind of talent. I want to be able to say "Yes, he's one of the greatest sax players in the world, and I am one of the best trauma nurses in the world."

If only I could learn faster! Get more experience quicker! This is the part where Q said "There you go again, eating the world with your eyes." Ha. Yes, well, I suppose Ganon got it somewhere, right? I've been at it for 3 months and I know I've learned a thousand things in that time--things that will make me a better nurse. Oh, but how I long for it to go faster! How I want to learn enough to feel relatively confident, and then go into the ER and then get into a trauma center and LIVE this thing that I have in my head! All the little things like work-related lacerations and broken bones all the way up to multiple trauma from a MVA or burns from a house fire. I want that NOW and I know I'm not ready for it yet. I just don't have the background. Why can't I get the background FASTER?!

But at least I'm progressing. I can see it. I'm in arrhythmia recognition now, and then I can take advanced cardiac life support. That's as far as they'll pay for me to go where I am currently, but then someday when I'm in ER, they will send me to advanced trauma life support and sexual assault nursing.

But I still need to get my tattoo, my compass that reminds me that this is a journey & not a destination. This is not someplace I'm going, this is something I'm doing. I need to stop being so impatient, so frantic to get on with it.

This has been another stream-of-consciousness life realization brought to you by the letter Q. Certainly one of my favorite letters. ^_~