Breckenridge Bump.

These past two weeks have been a roller coaster ride...

The kind of roller coaster ride that you really were not expecting.
The kind where you're not strapped in right so your limbs are flailing all over the place, and you're projectile vomiting from stupidly eating too much...
Obviously you were ill-prepared and not expecting this.

But oddly enough, though most of it is uncomfortable and unpleasant, there are bumps you enjoy along the way.

And sometimes, you think you can see what heaven must look like from the top of that peak.

And there are friends there to help you get you through a lot of the rough spots, 

whether they know it or not.

Friends to make you laugh, and to help you remember why you are here.

We all fall down sometimes.

But we all get back up eventually.

From this valley.

I'm happy with who I have turned into the past few years,

But at the same time I know there are still parts of me that need working on.

Obviously, though right?  Who doesn't have those internal struggles?

When I'm going through a hard time,

I make myself sick.

Literally, sick.

I have no urge to get out of bed, I sleep and sleep but I'll wake up in the middle of the night with the worst stomach aches I feel I've ever felt.

Two days ago, I forced myself to go on a solo hike to Grandeur Peak,

 hoping it would give me the peace and serenity that I so badly needed.

It was 6 1/2 miles round trip, give or take. 

I started the hike listening to a self-help book that, as I realized upon further ascent, was doing me no good as a hiker.

I needed to just be present and recognize what my body was doing.

I started listening to music.

But still, I was thinking.  And thinking, and thinking.

It was a slow, hard hike for me.  I tired easily.

My body hated me for not feeding it breakfast earlier, but I just had no appetite.

Trail runners passed me, and then passed me again.  That was embarrassing.

I made it to the top, tired emotionally and physically.

I sat down, but not before looking all around me.

Taking in that view was something I could never explain.

A 360 degree view of nothing but beauty, mountains, valleys, and some cities in between.

Pictures couldn't capture it.

I couldn't either, because I was too emotionally exhausted to take it in.

But, it was beautiful.

I made some friends at the peak.  A 77-year old man named George, who was almost too kind, and a 40-ish year old recently divorced woman and her dogs.  We listened to each other's stories for a bit, then parted ways.  I think that was the part of the beauty I captured that day -  3 different people, at the top of the same hike, reflecting on life.  That's the kind of thing that makes the world go 'round. 

I'm sore in a good way.

It feels like I accomplished something.

I know I will look back on this day and smile, but right now that just takes a lot of work.

It's Okay.

A lot of days I feel like this job is fit just for me, and I love it...

I'm passionate about it.

But some days, it's just really hard.

Today is one of those "some days".

We all have our personal baggage that we are supposed to stow at the door 

so to speak as we enter work.  

However, every single employee/employer knows that a lot of times that's just not possible.

Instead of having to sit a a computer or through meetings on a "blah" day,

Picture having to help tell a family that their little one has cancer.

And having to explain that to them...Just a little at a time, because you know they are so overwhelmed.

There are so many, many questions.

Then sending them to get procedures done

And having to proceed to traumatize them some other way directly afterwards, whether it be pokes, or taking off a bandaid over a sore spot.

Today, I'm not going to be remembered as Super nurse,

Or nice nurse, or 'That one Nurse I really liked".
Instead, I'm going to be remembered as 

"The Nurse that poked me and it hurt,"

and "The Nurse that was there to tell me I had cancer."
I guess that's okay.
I guess sometimes that happens.

As much as that hurts my heart,

That is a part of my job description.

Sometimes it's okay to cry.