You learn so much

When people told me that "you learn so much in your first year of being a nurse," I do not think I understood the weight of those words. I am learning about humans in a way that I never thought possible...

I have washed the arms and hands of a young man who tried to end his life. Deeps wounds, revealing tissue and flesh marked each wrist. The cuts carefully aimed into a tattooed cross and another of the word "faith." Those two tattoos mauled and overshadowed by a new blood-carved one, reading "love."

I have told a barren women, she was pregnant, only to have to come back a few moments later and tell her that her pregnancy was ectopic and she would need emergent surgery. I will never forget the way her husband cried.

I have tied a man down, following orders, only to see him cry and shudder from me.

Each day at least one person yells at me for somehow not meeting their expectations. I realize this is mostly because they are sick (or not sick), frustrated, and tired, but it wears on you.

There have been joys too... A ninety year old man telling me I had beautiful eyes and that he was "falling in love with me," a child smiling when being given a stuffed bear after a shot, or even the staff playing dance music and laughing.

I want to remain optimistic, but I don't know how you can in a place like this. I feel like I have gotten so old in the past year and half. I am faced to deal with the moral question of life and death each day, while most people worry about whether or not their clothes or hair are up-to-par. I smile and try to be strong for everyone else, but I am getting beat down.