We gotta keep ’em separated.

I am finding it very difficult to keep the school stress and the home stress from combining together to make some horrible, volatile substance that is bound to explode my your face and make a giant mess and yet another thing to take care of and clean up.

I have made my lists of things I need to do in the near future {I love lists.  I make lists of the lists I want to make.  It’s a sickness.}  This list includes finishing most of the odds and ends/busy kind of work that includes drug cards, printing out power points, and knocking out a handful of care maps.  With the holiday coming up, I have an extra day to attack the current work load so I’m trying my best to be optimistic.  However, my powers of personal persuasion are quickly diminishing as the home life stuff starts piling up.  Granted, it is nothing I can actually do to correct or alleviate (sickness, worry, what-if’s, and self doubt), so I’m kind of up a creek on that front.

I spent a good portion of last Saturday deep cleaning most of my house.  {Let’s face it, doing fun stuff with my people is way more enticing than cleaning.}  With that said, I should be pretty good to go for at least the summer as far as big cleaning jobs go.  {Don’t judge me.  My house isn’t disgusting or anything.  I just don’t dust every inch of my home every day, or even every week.  And I have two dogs.  And a kid.  And a husband.  And well, I live in a giant sandbox.}  It’s just that it seems that when it rains, it pours, and lately my family has been reaching down deep to muster the emotional fortitude to face one crappy situation after the next.  It just sucks and while I can rationalize my way out of the weight of the worry and concern most of the time, there are days where it just sits too heavy to shake.

I say all of that to say, that there are good days, and there are bad days.  {And there are even more of the in-between thanks to my amazing support system, led by my by husband, whom makes all of this possible… in more ways than one.}

I know this is a means to an end.
{Seeing my childhood dreams come to fruition.)
I know that there is an end-point.
{With small milestones to keep up the faith.}
I know that it will all be worth it.
{Doing what I was created to do will be worth all of it.}

I know all of this, but I think the part that people {well meaning, supportive, loving people} forget about is the middle part.  The hard part.  {The part that is currently the driving force behind the chips and licorice I am currently consuming.}

I know I will make it through this, even if it means I get a dreaded B.  Hopefully I can also pick up some better coping mechanisms along the way.

Here we go again.

Second verse, same as the first.  A little bit louder and a little bit worse.

That’s right, folks.  We are back at it again.  And by we, I mean me.  So far I have done really well at not giving in to my normal first day panic.  Granted, my mind has mostly been somewhere else, but I am really trying to focus on the fact that I can only do what I can do, and I can only do that one day at a time.  {Let’s not discuss the mild freak-out I had earlier tonight because my family had PB&J and eggs & toast for dinner.}

The first few days, at least for me, is this weird mix of ‘what exactly should I be doing’ and ‘holy crap there are a million things I should be doing’.  Currently, I’m chipping away {albeit, slowly} at the giant list of drug cards that need to be done this semester.  I figure if I can get them done now before things really get hot and heavy, it should buy me some time later for other all the other things that I will need to do.  It may very well be an exercise in futility, but in this moment, it is helping me feel like I’ve got things under control.  {No, I don’t have control issues.  Why do you ask?}

So far it seems I have things under control, but I’m not opposed to having a stock of paper bags laying around.  After all, we are talking about me here.

Put a sock in it

Today we need to discuss a very important topic that may make or break your success in nursing school.  Listen to me when I tell you, this information is vital.  Okay, so maybe it isn’t that important, but the difference is remarkable.

So what am I talking about?  Compression socks.  That’s right, socks.  I have used them in the past for running, but I didn’t heed the warnings when I was reading every article and blog post available before I started my program.  This semester included a clinical assignment that lasted 6 hours at most and by the end of it, my legs were sore.  I’m staring down the barrel of 12 hour clinical so I’m pretty sure they are mandatory at this point, that is if you like your feet.  Honestly, they are wonderful for just sitting in class as well.  It’s like a hug for your legs.  An all day hug.

Finding socks that are uniform compliant but have enough compression was tough.  Thankfully, I found some that are kind of like mullet socks; party up top and business down below.

It is rare to get to show a bit of personality in the nursing school uniform, so this is my sneaky way of getting some fun in.  So hear me when I tell you, find some quality compression socks.  You can thank me later.