What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up?

I am 30 years old, and I am asking myself this question. I know it is not an original one. I know there are many soon to graduate high school students asking this very same question, and panicking. I too, am panicking.

This question has been lingering over me and nagging at me for the past year or so. Before that I was content with my accomplishments, feeling both content and overwhelmed. I had graduated nursing school, passed my boards, and had good paying, steady employment.

I found myself taking a risk and landing a job in outpatient surgery, which, as a nurse, is the easiest job out there, that I know of anyway. I was being paid better than average to do a job that required no more than 12 hours a week of actual work. Yet, I was full time, and working an average of 32 hours a week.

I found myself very bored, and depressed. I gained a lot of weight, which is ironic, since the company specialized in the lap-band procedure. I started out enthusiastic, thinking that I cared about this service, and the cause it was fighting. That sloughed off gradually as my enthusiasm was met with caution, and I was told to be seen and not heard, or even better, not seen or heard. Just be a mindless worker-bee that doesn’t make waves or rock the boat.

So I did what I know how to do best. I became invisible. The boredom was overwhelming, and I was getting restless. I started looking into other opportunities. The first one that caught my attention was aesthetic nursing. Actually, that tangent started in the earlier chapters of this story. My DON, and boss, and one and only other nurse on the job was looking into a career in aesthetic nursing. She wanted to do dermal fillers and LipoZap. I told her I thought that lasers were fascinating, and most likely going to replace, or at least replicate, plastic surgery.

She started her business. She figured out pretty quickly that I was right, that LipoZap and such was very risky and not yet FDA approved, but that laser was showing some very promising capabilities, that are simple, non-invasive, with minimal down time. She continually dangled her intention to make me a partner in her business as a motivation for me to seek knowledge and skill in the practice.

To make a long story short, I pursued it for a time, and landed on my ass. I invested time and money I cannot expect to get back at this point.

Once I accepted my failure in that pursuit, I found myself, once again, bored and desperate. The thing is, I became a nurse because I care about people, and the world. Yes, I also want and need a decent income. I thought that staying at the surgery center was the best of both worlds, a sort of happy medium.

However, I found that I was trapped by convenience and money into a position that provided me with no challenges or satisfaction.

I thought many times of new ways to make the business better, via patient support, advertising, research and community involvement. I got a lot of verbal support with colleagues I encountered on a daily to weekly basis. However, whenever I attempted to voice my ideas to the company, I was shut down and told to be quiet, not to draw attention.

The discouragement led to apathy about the job. The excess of free time was driving me mad. The money kept me from leaving. I had to find a way to make this work. It was too easy. 10 minutes from my home, 3 minutes from Elia’s school. What more could anyone ask?

I was going insane. I decided to make use of the excess time by enrolling in online classes. I did, and am in my second session. I love it. It has engaged me in a way that I realize I have not been engaged in for years. It is feeding me, stirring me, making me question, and look for meaning. I need more meaning.

In this process, I discover a website where I am blogging for a scholarship. I am hoping to win some money to help offset the huge amount of debt I have just imposed upon my family by taking on student loans. I just paid those off, didn’t I?

I find myself completely engaged and enthralled, both by school and by my blog. I realize that I need school to discipline my mind, and I need an audience to respond to my ideas, in order to guide me toward my purpose.

This is all so exciting, and brings me all kinds of excitement and stimulation. I am finding myself very busy. Too busy to do my monthly logs at work on time, and too busy to put my laptop at home away when I am alone with my daughter.

I have realized that my passions are high in many areas, but that my perspective does not end with the immediate and superficial. In recognizing the perils of humanity, mainly terrorism and global warming, I am inclined to seek information and skills that will help me to deal with these. I am inclined to seek a federal job with FEMA.

I cannot sit still thinking and knowing that I could be doing more, and that our world is headed toward a major physical shift, either by war or by natural disaster.

Last week I was told I was being “let go,” and asked not to return to the surgery center, unless called in as per diem in a pinch at the surgery center.

Wow, ………………

What????????????

Uh, ,,,,,,,,,,

Ohhh, Kay?

Uhhhhhhh,

Yeah,

WTF??????

What the Hell?

What am I going to do?

How am I going to make things work for my family?

Like crashing while sleeping at the wheel, I have been cut down to the bottom of the line of reality. I cannot keep going the way I have been, with my head in the clouds.

I have to do the best I can with what I have. I have to take inventory of all of my skills and resources and figure out what is going to have the best ROI (return on investment).

At this point in time, I am inclined to go back to pursuing a position in aesthetic nursing. There are a lot of risks involved. First of all, I have to monopolize on my own appearance, embrace and enhance whatever beauty I might possess.

Next, I have to be willing and confident enough to market myself. I have to make some cold calls, and show up at interviews. I have to deliver self-prepared artistic materials depicting my talent. I have to be confident in myself.

That is very scary for me. Yet, in terms of meeting the needs of my family, I am looking to make about $200/ hour. That is more than a 500% raise. If the only thing standing in my way is my own fear, I owe it to my family to get over that and make a go of it.

The other inclination I suffer is one which urges me to abandon all paths that are imposed on me by society and expectations, and to trust myself, utilize my creativity, and act on what I know to be True. Choosing this path would cause me to abandon everything, and all responsibility, including my family, which i am not willing to relinquish.

The other issue is my education. I do not want to let it go, but it is having a financial and time constraint on my family. I feel guilty about borrowing more money for school. Again, this is just another reason to seek the kind of employment that will minimize my financial difficulties in the near future.

The last issue standing in my way is my own conviction toward my values. I am morally irritated by my interest in aesthetic medicine. I have always been inclined to a life of sacrifice, similar to that of a missionary, for humanity.

It is hard for me to sit back and be idle when I know that children are dying horrible deaths, and being maimed of limb. Knowing that mothers are having their infants ripped from their breasts for the sake of democracy makes me feel basically ashamed of any woes I might express.

My spirit yearns to heal. Whether it be individual, familial, or communal, political, or sociological, superficially, or deeply, with or without personal prosperity, I do not really mind. Yet my soul cries for the highest possible evolution. She will be content with a lesser evolution, but evolution is required, for her to retain Hope.

My options and opportunities are endless. How do I choose the most practical course of action? How do I live up to my responsibilities without being ignorant of the inevitable, and without being ignorant of the immediate world around me, and my ability to make it serve me?