Priority List

Okay, I finally made my priority list...here goes.

Spiritual:
Maintain my relationship with God.
Maintain my relationship with myself.
Maintain my relationship with my children, sisters, brothers, dad and friends
Work.
Clean the house (the one that I live in).
Go through the steps (all twelve in order).

Physical:

Eat better
Eat (sometimes I forget to eat).
Stop drinking coffee.
Excercise.

Financial:

Save 10.00 per paycheck.
Pay rent first.
Buy food first.
Put money in every week.

Emotional:

Write everyday.
Smile everyday.

This is like a skeleton outline.  I know that I need to be a little more specific. But, a least this is a start. I can do all this stuff  and I hope it will make me happy but who knows.  The main thing is not to live to far outside myself and to not rush past me everyday.  When I do that I kinda lose touch with who I am and that doesn't feel too good.

Map for my life... I don't know what is going to happen everyday but I want to at least be consistent in my actions.  And make love a daily part of who I am. Of course, planning something is no guarantee that it will happen.  But if I work at it I'm sure I can be.

Aftershock or Change

After writing that letter to my director about my manager, I thought I'd feel better after I wrote it, but I don't.
I am baffled by this.  I think that the inequity, dysfunction and denial  in American society, is so deep-seeded and wide spread and that people just are just clueless, I have to keep checking in with myself to make sure that I did the right thing.  People seem to think that they have a right to step all over you especially if that feel that they have a higher status or position in life. And that is so weird to me.

Racism still exists.  I can't say that my manager is racist, but I will say that whatever issues she has, have fooled her into believing that she has authority that really doesn't belong to her. It is an institution in this country that is also deeply rooted. And realistically, I don't think that it will ever go away.  I see it everyday, in the way that the office is organized, in the way that I am treated and in the differences in the way the patients are treated.  It is something that has existed since the beginning of human existance.  And I believe in a lot of ways, it's primitive nature is an outdated survival tactic whose instinctual basis overrides any intellectual reasoning that is supposed to be the corner stone of what we call civilization.

If we were driven more by our intellect and reason, than by instinct would it make sense to despise someone or treat someone poorly simply because of their external appearance?  And would we be headed into the vortex of self-destruction?

My old psyche, tries to make me feel guilty about what I did.  But I have a right to take care of myself and defend what I know to be true. But, what is daunting is the fact that what may be true for the majority may or may not be true for one person, and if that person is not strong enough to withstand pressure of going against the grain, it can skew their sense of existence to the point of oblivion.

What the tides of denial have often done for me in the past, has caused me to adopt someone else's sense of reality.  But today, I can no longer exist in the world watching pink polka dotted elephants trample my sense of self and ignore it.
Regardless, of what happens, I will stand my ground... For me.

A true hero, first champions his own cause.

New Shoes

I'm feeling like crap right now. It's Friday and I just came from the office that I work out of after ratting out my manager who keeps harassing me.  My head hurts and I'm a little frightened.  I'm really not used to taking up for myself and this feels a bit uncomfortable. I suppose that I will survive regardless of the outcome.  But I have had it with the assaults that this manager visits on me weekly.

Home care is the most dog eat dog health system that I've ever worked in. Nurses are abusive to themselves and each other because of the baggage that they bring into the profession.  I'm convinced that if it weren't for the viscious backstabbing and backbiting that existed within the profession, the nursing shortage would not exist.

I'm tired of it and have vowed to enter another profession.  I'm not sure that that is the answer to the ultimate happiness that I seek in life as I know it, but it seems like it would be.  Autonomy and power is the key to mortal nirvana...

Not.

At the moment, this new me thing doesn't feel very comfortable. Taking up for myself.  The very manager that has been backing over me with her virtual car every week admonishes me to protect myself.  That is what I'm trying to do.  So why don't I feel good?

I guess it takes a while for new habits to feel right.  I guess it's like wearing a new pair of shoes.  You have to kind of walk around in them for a while before they start to become comfortable.  I'm going to have to walk around for a while.  It still feels unacceptable.

I'm a little frightened, but I'll live...

My Bloggy, My Friend

Blogging helps.  It helps me to look at myself and see  some of the changes that I need to make in my life. Whether I'll actually do these things or not, I don't know.  I am going to list my priorities, as it relates to my reality and then track how I'm doing with taking care of the priorites. 

I procrastinate a lot so I have not yet sat myself down to make my priority list.  I will.  Soon.  This is kind of an exciting, fun but scary project.  Fear can keep you from doing anything.  I never related any of my ills to fear.  But, that's probably the crux of much of my procrastinating ability...habit...whatever you call it.

I am beginning to love my bloggy.  It is a place where I can express anything that I want to express.  I used to worry about what people would think if they read this.  What I've found in life is that most people are as crazy as I am, they just hide it better.  I shudder to think who is running the government while I sit here and type.. (I could take this discussion to a whole 'nutha level, but I'll leave it at that),

My bloggy is a me in the world and I love it.  It's so neat.

My Own Worst FrenzEnemy

When I get upset, I mean really emotionally overwhelmed (to put it mildly).  Not only do I get mad at the world, I get mad at myself  too.  That's a weird discovery. It's almost like I take responsibilty for the things that other people do to me. And it sends me plummeting to the depths of despair. 

I used to wonder why people sliced their wrists, almost starve themselves to death, commit suicide.  I suspect it's because, some how they have received the message that they must engulf and pay for the sins of the world.  (I used to call this the Jesus complex).

I was so angry that I wasn't going to blog.   A deep seeded part of me had convinced me that it was useless and a whole buncha crazy thinking was circulating in my brain. This type of thinking creates extreme anxiety for me and makes it difficult for me to focus on anything.  I'm glad I  had the courage to blog to day.

When I first started, I was afraid who would see it. But I hope that eventually, I can help other people.

Being self-destructive is painful.  It's almost as painful trying to cure myself of this habit that I've practiced, probably all of my life.  If I can find the patience to adorn myself with self-love- a difficult but necessary task- I can not only grow my self-esteem but hopefully help to break generational patterns.

Courage helps too.

Reality Bites

Sometimes it feels like life is a bad dream, like I ate too much before I went to bed the night before, like I"m on an hostile, unfamiliar planet.

I was upset last week when my manager called me yelling at me because a client's relative called her 4x's on the day before New Year's day. The client was upset because the person's catheter had not been changed. She had called me the week before, about this.  I thought the issue had been resolved.  But apparently she had not let it go. Compared to some of the horror stories that I have seen out in the field,  this New Year weekend -and prior- this was a small issue.  Furthermore, it was a favored co-workers responsibility to do the task but she "forgot" the necessary equipment. But, that was okay..

I really need to get over it because the ignorance and sloth that I have come across in the field that I am working in and nursing in Georgia  is daunting...and scary.  All I can think of is Lord, please let me die before I have to depend on someone to come and to my house to take care of me.

It has been said that Georgia is the worse state in the union to work as a nurse.  Having worked here for so ling I now believe that.  I chose to stay here for the last 15 years because I did not believe that the healthcare  field is as bad as it is, and that nurses were not treated here as badly as they are.  I've been in denial for a long time.

Anyway, I was very upset at the manager. And yelled at her. And told her that I would not be the scapegoat for everything that is wrong with that agency.  She has been targeting me since she walked through the door.  She had only been in the agency for a couple of weeks when she wrote me up for not getting my work in on time.  That week I had been very ill, and I called her to tell her that I was ill.  Not only did she call me numerous times, but she left harrassing voicemails on my phone.  And then the director followed up that Friday to tell me I was going on an action plan because I had thirteen outstanding transmissions.  She sent me a list with eight outstanding transmissions. 6 of which were not outstanding...2 which were not mine.

She wrote me up anyway. And tagged another write up to it basically accusing me of fraud.

I apologized without being sorry and told her about the horror stories-well one them- that I had seen in the field and she acted like she cared. I attempted to ask her how it is that she could call me about some-thing so minor, that was really someone elses responsibility, when major things were happening in the field that she had no clue about?  We never got to that part of the conversation. Scary...

It is not healthcare in and of itself that is costly.  It is the unwillingness of a capitalistic society to actually work to deliver,  monitor and improve on the healthcare product that costs us.  Ultimately, the selfishness and greed that characterizes capitalism today, will cost us much more than the tax dollars that we whine about.

Socialism is not the biggest threat facing american freedom today. (I've found that most  of the people screaming about socialism can't even define it. ) We are.

When will we see where we are headed?

Reality of the New Year

I woke up with the reality of the new year hanging over my head. I entered January 1. with a type of euphoria that I had before but never really paid much attention to.  My head filled with a list of accomplishments or achievements that I would pursue and no idea how I would go about it.  I worked all weekend so I didn't really have time to ruminate on these things and write out a  plan.  On my list was moving, blogging, writing a novel, starting another blog (which I'm working on) fiction, applying to school, starting my own business and hving dred locks put in my hair, buying a new top of the line computer and vacationing on the beach in the south of France... Getting all of my bills paid so that I can improve my credit, join the foreign legion. These are things that I really want to do. And boy the fantasy of actually doing them is as real as the reality. (I was jut kidding about joining the foreign legion).

But.. then comes Monday and ...Bam, reality punches me in the face and I realize that all of these things are feasible, but I have no idea where to start or how long it will take. And then the priority thing...

When I think about it, reality is not an issue.  Priorites are.  I have a little boy and I have to think about him and if I want to vacation in the south of France, I have to think about things like how I will pay my rent when I'm away or if I even want to come back and what we will eat, and how we will communicate because neither of us know french.  It's no daunting but these are things to think about. But then I realize that you can make your own priorities and your own realities, but it's harder to make your own realities.

So I have to think about mine.  That gives me a reality headache.  I know what I want to do.  The shoulds in my life get smaller and smaller everyday.  I don't allow those to chase me around anymore, the way that they used to.  You can should yourself to death.  Life this year for me will be based on what it is that I want to do.  And if it is for me to do...it will become a reality.

Then I

Happy New Year

I am so glad the holidays are ending. Never in my life have I been as aware of the emotional toll that the Holidays take as I have been this year.  I have mulled over, thought about, ruminated on and wondered about the events of the past year,  and if I had it to do all over again...guess what, I wouldn't have a choice as to whether I would go through it all again.  Even, with 20/20 hindsight.  Just thinking about it all exhausts me and come to think of it...all I've wanted to do since Christmas eve is sleep.

Anyway, I said I was looking forward to the New Year, but if it's going to be anything like last year, then I change my mind.  From where I stand, things don't look too good. My finances are a mess, I'm looking for a place to move to, I hate working the job that I have( for various reasons which I'm not sure are important and don't really want to go into here). Most people would cringe at the list of moans and groans that I can enumerate.  But I'm convinced that life wasn't made to be pleasant, I guess it was made to be a challenge. And I have plenty of them.

Nevertheless, I will try to face the fire breathing dragons in my life with bravery, and a coat of armour.  And hope for the best. 

I'm still here...So last year couldn't have been all that bad,