12:57 a.m. - 2016-02-17
Pee on me, but don't boss me
I have decided, I think, that I can't fucking do this not-writing thing. If I wait until April 1 to file then I will have decent unemployment for 26 weeks and that should be time for me to figure out how to be a nurse and a reporter at the same time. Doing either one full-time would kill my soul, and I think I should be old enough to know what kills my soul, right? I mean, I have been killing it for years.
I can't work 12-hour days producing copy for squat and never see my kids, and covering way too much tragedy. And I can't work half as much for twice as much money pushing pills to people I adore but voicelessly... as I wrote to A., I enjoy comforting the afflicted, but it kills my soul not to be able to afflict the comfortable as well.
It's just a really terrible prospect, and I will end up bitchy or alcoholic or both.
My therapist is a big fan of nurses, and she seems to think I can "just be a nurse" (sorry for putting it that way, to all other nurses out there -- God I know it is not "just" a nurse). But I have this really un-tame-able fighting spirit -- don't mean to be melodramatic but I can't think of a better word -- that just turns cannibalistic when it has nothing to fight. I never really noticed when I was reporting, although believe me I did in high school. I always had some evil and injustice to fight, reporting. Granted, I had to do it on my own time but I had the power of barrels of ink behind me if I produced no-cost-to-the-company quality copy. I miss that.
Oh, I miss having the governor's cell number. Might as well admit it. I miss the power that reporters have and nurses don't have.
All my daughter wanted for her 9th birthday, Feb. 13, was to be a boy. I told her I can't help her with that, but I can whack her hair and give her boy clothes, which I did. The next day we took her brother to the neurologist and his MA referred to my kids as "your boys." I said (reflexively), "Actually it's my daughter and son," and she apologized profusely and said it was just Mar's hat. I said Mar actually considers it a compliment. The MA looked confused.
Mar had me read her a comic book about epilepsy that was in Spanish and I was pleased that although I cannot speak Spanish that well, I can translate it marvelously.
Anyway, I showed Mar's "boy picture" to my therapist (it really is a beautiful picture, and I do not usually take beautiful pictures) and she said the same. She said that when she was Mar's age she wanted short hair and to be called "Johnny" (an approximation of her name.) I asked her if she grew out of it. She said that by high school she did not want to be called Johnny anymore.
I continue to be fascinated by that woman. She is 66 and every time I see her I am afraid she is going to fall on the ice walking in and break a hip. Nonetheless she is tougher than shit and admits to smoking pot before her own therapy sessions, tearing apart and fixing houses when she should have been fixing herself and relationships (like me) (I said what you do with the houses is probably more lasting, and she laughed) ... she is also a very feminine-looking lesbian, and vegetarian, and can discuss tea brands and the eras of Celestial seasonings labels with me. That is creepy. I wonder if she is what I will end up being in 30 years.
Probably not, because I never wanted to be a boy and I have a real pain-in-the-ass streak that she evidences but does not seem to have to such an extent. I mean, I keep telling her that there is something intrinsically wrong with me but when I look back on my life, I think it boils down to liking pissing people off and paying the consequences. I can't say there's a moral justification to it; I like it for the high of being in really deep shit because you run your mouth. It is sort of thrill-seeking like riding downhill on your mou9ntain bike with no brakes (which I also liked at a point in my life). I don't like self-defeating behavior for the sake of self-defeating behavior, but I like the thrill of dealing with a bully (and there are lots of them when you're a good reporter) who think that because they wear a suit and make a ton of money, they are going to squash you like a bug.
Um. No. My 96-pound ass is going to put a little chink in your little corporate dinosaur armor. Or politician armor, whatever it may be.
I have been fighting people bigger than me my whole life and that is what I think I really like doing. I can't do the "yes, doctor" thing and let him have my chair. I had the fucking chair first.
And yes, I know nursing is all about patients and I adored my patients. I have different standards for people whose minds and bodies are failing than for doctors. God knows I have caught and dropped enough of them (patients) down my knee, and I don't care if they pee on the way down. They're my peeps.
I just can't deal with the doctors. And administrators. And all of those strutting types.
At least not without a little journalism on the side to keep me sane and balanced.
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