Loving Phlebotomy

Yesterday was the first day of clinical training at the hospital where I and another student will be getting our hands-on experience. We will be going at different times, but went together for the first day of orientation.

Day One was spent getting paperwork squared away, posing for faded-out pictures for our badges, and observing.

Today, Day Two, the actual venipuncture began! I drew blood for five patients, and they all went really well. My friend, who had an earlier shift, had a successful day, too!

We’re really lucky—our mentors are encouraging, realistic, and so easy to work with. Mix that with the enthusiasm of their two students, and it looks like we’re on our way to a successful five weeks!

 

Learning to Play Tag at Age 60

There was a big tree on the playground, and we would play tag around it. The tree was home. You couldn’t be tagged “You’re It!” if any part of your body was touching any part of the tree. If you didn’t venture far enough or often enough away from the tree, you were accused of being a home sticker.

I’ve always been a homebody. I like all the quiet, nurturing, and domestic things. Hearing the pop of the lids after canning a line of jars with my tomato marmalade makes me happy. I like being a homebody.

But I think I’ve also been a home sticker. I insulated myself within what I thought was an emotionally and financially secure life. When that illusion blew up, I was forced to go it, maybe not alone, but as a single person.

Now, if I’m going to survive, I need to put myself out there. Away from the tree.

I worry. What if this? What if that?

What is the worst that can happen?

The worst that can happen is that I would be tagged “It.”

I would be “It.”

Finally!

 

April 25, 2013

Today I turn 60.

Forty years ago I had all the answers.

But it’s better now. I have all the questions.

 

Starting Over and Optimistic

Well, next week I begin my phlebotomy class. I will turn 60 this Thursday, and will be embarking on a new career in healthcare.

A few days ago, a lab coat that I will need for the clinical training arrived via UPS. I wasn’t sure about the sizing, since the design was not gender specific.

I put it on. It fit perfectly. It felt comfortable. When I looked in the mirror, its bright white color made my face light up.

 

Downplaying Career

This is where I screwed up.

I always felt (and still do) that family was the most important thing. I was the parent who worked outside the home, but making the home was my real job. I enjoyed working for the most part, but never developed a career. We were comfortable enough with my husband’s disability benefits and my hourly jobs. If I got laid off, it wasn’t the end of the world until I got another job. Meanwhile, I identified with “Wife” and “Mom”.

I wasn’t the type to get divorced, and I thought my husband was my soulmate.

You always hear about the idea that nobody ever wishes they spent more time at the office when they’re on their deathbed.

But we also need to hear about the idea that nobody ever wishes they put all their energy into the home and neglected making sure they are able to support themselves when they’re at a table with an ex and two lawyers.

 

Living Without Results

Is scary.

For me.

A control freak (?)

Throughout the house, piles of documents with accompanying papers of scribbled phone call notes, all with promises of who will get back to me when. Some of the when already passed.

Agencies, lawyers, physicians, counselors, schools, banks, realtors. My whole life on hold. Am I making the right decisions? Do past results warrant my trusting myself? How can I keep up my self-esteem? Will I go into a tailspin trusting all the “experts”?

Or am I looking for security when it never really existed in the first place?

 

Why Self-help Books Get Re-read

On one of the many mornings that I thought staying in the fetal position under warm covers and hovering in a semi-dream state might mitigate my anxiety, these words announced themselves:

Too complicated to control

Yep, that’s it, I realized, as all my muscles tightened, afraid to try the day. That describes the scary situations that keep me breathing shallowly, darting from one thing to another, muffling the scream, saying (sometimes out loud), “I can’t do this.”

Too complicated to control. Life. Life is too complicated to control. Oh, now it sounds like a truth instead of a problem.

Life is too complicated to control. So why is Claudia a nervous wreck because Claudia can’t control Life?

This pretty much solves it, doesn’t it?

I recently discovered this Zen story:

One day Mara, the Evil One, was walking through the villages of India with his attendants. They saw a man doing walking meditation whose face lit up with wonder after discovering something on the ground in front of him. One attendant asked what that was. Mara replied, “A piece of truth.”

“Doesn’t it bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?” asked the attendant. “No,” Mara replied. “Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it.”

Life is too complicated to control. Good insight. A truth. One truth. One piece. As true as my human tendency will be to slip back into familiar, anxious grooves in my future complicated life.