Work, a prompt

the experience that comes along with finding the way while also having a job

Hi! It’s the end of May and the world keeps turning. It amazes me sometimes how fast days, weeks, a month goes by. And here we are.

I keep up with the news as best as I can these days. Sometimes I want a break from it, but I don’t think this is a time we can afford to stop paying attention. The thing that bothers me the most is that it is impossible to take in/remember all of the terrible things being done to people and still continue to function. It feels weird to write a newsletter without acknowledging this every time I sit down to write.

Luckily, I have built in excuses in my schedule to be writing. I don’t get it all done or down in these sessions, but via a general prompt that I can take or leave, I have the space to be writing in the ‘New Rules Studio.’ I highly recommend it as a kickstart to regular writing and I now have a lot of material built up, and maybe even a body of work(s) - I just keep generating it and I honestly don’t think I’d be writing about some of this stuff without the prompt in the moment.

May is a month for me that brings up a lot of memories. From graduating to nursing school eons ago to receiving a cancer diagnosis in the same month multiple times along with various situational occurrences, I often just have to sit and reflect and expect less of myself in this month.

I want to share my piece from last week’s session where the prompt was ‘WORK’ - because it brought up a lot that I’m still thinking about and contemplating.

Thanks for reading.

For the first time in 20 years I have a full time job. It confuses me to say that. For 20 years I said, ‘flexibility is freedom’ and I stand by that statement. But for some reason, last fall when I took this job, I had started to feel like I needed a new level of stability.

I’m still trying to process my former lives. Yes, I have lived several lives in this one, sometimes all at the same time. Various versions of myself to keep track of - the responsible caregiver, the fun sideman, the lead singer, the moody writer, the best friend, the good firstborn… all of those mixed together weighed me down - I began to wonder, who am I anyway?

The biggest thing - in all of these attempts to meld into the society of the rules of the particular life I was leading, it was hard to know what I wanted for dinner. Why, with all these plates in the air, could I NEVER know what to eat or when to eat? Too many nights with microwaved chips and shredded cheese - what a cliche - but I couldn’t be bothered to think of one more thing.

And then, a cancer diagnosis, one I had anticipated since 9 years old, showed up at 39, just when I thought I finally had decided that I had a right to know what I wanted to eat, fucked me up in the best and worst ways.

The roads into the underbelly of the healthcare system I had been feeding my energy into converged at the sign that I needed to take a pause in all of it, and see what it was like to be a patient - to jump through difficult hoops and feel the vulnerability when a new resident says ‘happy birthday’ while injecting blue dye into my breast, the day after I turn 40. What a gut punch - ‘Could you please… not wish me happy birthday’ I managed to squeak out as I tried to hang on in that moment.

That was work in its own way - to learn to stop and accept love and healing and worthiness - much harder work than ever punching in and saving lives or helping them complete - work I was always called to do despite having creative advances luring me elsewhere.

Nursing is art too. And healing is art. Offering healing. Accepting healing. This is all why we have art. It’s why we make music and write. It’s not always full time work and it doesn’t always pay in dollars or anything measurable. How do you measure the power of healing in the moment you hear the most perfect song as your soundtrack that unlocks levels of pain over lifetimes within a lifetime?

So now I have this full time job. It sucks to work 40 hours a week. Sometimes I am reaching for the page and fall down before I can get the words in. Sometimes the words topple out. Sometimes I fall asleep dreaming of the book I’m writing and promise to get up early and write. Then morning comes and I hit the snooze because I need a little more peace before heading into the office.