This post seems to be getting a lot of buzz lately. And a lot of bad buzz from young married/engaged/whatever women.

http://wanderonwards.com/2013/12/30/23-things-to-do-instead-of-getting-engaged-before-youre-23/

I personally love this young woman's blog, and I love what she's doing with her life.

I'm 21 years old, I was in a decent length relationship of a couple years, I used to want to get engaged senior year in college, making me 21. Obviously that life didn't happen for me as I am now single, ringless and pretty much my life is devoid of any males. And as much time as I've spent lamenting about it for the past year that I've been getting over that break up/lost dream/lost life that I thought I was going to have, I'm done with it. I am still a girl, so of course I will be sad in my singleness at times and I will still want that person, but I'm done making it a priority in my life, I have so many other more important priorities.

There are SO many other things that we as women, and not even women but humans can do instead of worrying about getting married/being alone for forever.

Personally, my whole life has opened up since I gave up that wish. I've always wanted to move to Washington state, or Tennessee, and now that I'm single that seems so much more possible. I know a lot of these young married/engaged women are blogging now saying that "if I wanted to go anywhere my husband/fiancé would come with me" but once you're married you have to make choices as a couple, not just one person anymore. If your spouses job is the one that is mainly supporting you both, chances are no matter how much you want to move or your person will support you in that, you wont. I didn't realize how much I was planning my life around another person when I had that person. It's important when you're young to plan your life around you and your dreams. It's your time to be selfish, and your time to figure out your life, not someone else's life.

I'm not saying young love is bad, or wrong or this atrocity that needs to be put to rest. I'm just saying that it's not a bad thing to do other things with your 20's besides getting married and having children. It's not a bad thing to do things for you. It's not a bad thing to not want to get engaged by the time you're 23.

I've noticed though a kind of vengeance coming out from the young women who so happen to be engaged/are working towards that, like how dare you lowly single people feel this way. We have it so much better because we are not alone, we have someone who loves us and wants to spend the rest of their life with us. No one is better than anyone else, just because you have a ring on your finger and a wedding under your belt does not make you any better than me who has regular dates with myself and Netflix and no prospect of a boyfriend on the horizon. My sister is engaged and she's 22, many of my classmates are engaged and they are freshly 21 for the most part, a couple of them weren't even 21, I am sure more of my friends will get engaged before we graduate and even more the summer after we graduate. And I am happy for each and every one of them, but they are no better than me because of it, and I am no more pathetic than them because I am not.

So get engaged before you're 23, or don't, it doesn't really matter. They are just two different lives, and everyone is entitled to live the kind of life they want.

New Nurses vs. Old Nurses

There seems to be two categories of nurses "new nurses" and "old nurses" ie younger nurses, and older nurses.

I think the differences between old nurses and new nurses comes about most when we talk about the huge leaps and bounds nursing is taking in the technology department. It is said so often, old nurses don't like the new technology, they don't like to change their ways, so on and so forth. Sometimes old nurses kind of get a bad rap, at least that is from my experience. Old nurses also seem to catch a lot of flack for being hardened, sometimes mean and callused.

As a soon to be "new nurse" I obviously don't have a lot of experience, but we are ALL going to be "old nurses" eventually. Nursing isn't going anywhere, no matter how much technology improves, I don't think a machine can ever do as much as a person can for a sick person. People need people, and they seem to need them even more when they're sick. We will all become weary of change when we just got used to the last change the medical field threw at us. We will all become reluctant to "change our ways" eventually. Nursing is hard, and it's constantly moving and it's taking care of the dying person AND their family down the hall while your own family member may be dying across the country but you can't take time off to go be with them. I think nurses rely on their own way of organizing their day and their own routines because the day can be so unpredictable. I've noticed even in my self a type of neurotic organization and needing to make lists and know what is happening at what time and if possible having to know exactly what to do in a given situation. I don't like venturing into new things in my personal life because my soon to be professional life and school life is filled with SO MUCH new!

And then people talk about how "old nurses" sometimes feel they've put in the time and the hours and the holidays and they deserve more time off or the pick of the holidays and things like that. Working holidays is tough, it's lonely and it's a drag to be quite honest. I love my residents at work but sometimes I just don't want to be there on a holiday. I spend more time with them than I do with my family on my breaks and I spend more of my hours with them than with my family on the holidays. I can see where the older nurses are coming from, how many holiday dinners and family parties and picnics do they have to miss? Everyone knows that as a nurse you sign up for long shifts, and a high patient load and stress and working holidays, but at some point it has to take a toll on you. We are human, and we have families too and we get burnt out too. If someone who sits at a desk from 9-5 and gets weekends and holidays off can get burnt out, imagine how quickly it can happen for somebody on their feet 12+ hours a day, working weekends and holidays.

As a "new nurse" I'm going to try remember that I will be an "old nurse" faster than I think, I will look back on the last 30 years and realize I'm not that young fresh faced, passionate, eager to please and change 21 year old graduate nurse that I used to be. I will be aged, and I will be tired and I will be working my umpteenth holiday, missing another family function or not making it home for dinner with my kids who I haven't seen enough of. I will be reluctant to change my routine, I will be resistant to another new thing that is being brought into the healthcare field, I will be sad that I can't pay enough attention to each of my patients. I will be overworked and underpaid. I will be all of those things just like the "old nurses" are now, I will be one of them. But I'll be proud to be an "old nurse", because it means I've stuck with a career that is demanding, and a career that takes a lot out of you, physically, mentally and emotionally. And as a "new nurse" I'll try to remember how I will feel in those 30 years, I will try to cover a shift when I can, and I will try to not be so quick to judge and so quick to roll my eyes at the nurse who is so "stuck" in her routine or her ways.

I will try to remember that all of the old nurses were once new nurses and all of the new nurses will at some point become old nurses.

How to not have it all together

I'm a senior in college, I have good friends and I have decent grades, I laugh a lot with my friends and I cry a lot with them too. I have a good family, and I have a great dog. I am 21, and I've never been drunk, or anywhere close to drunk. I have a good head on my shoulders and I like to follow the rules, not often do I stray too far off the beaten path, but I like it that way. I just started tutoring peers and I had a job working with kids all summer, which is where I want my nursing career to take me. I've never failed a class, although I've failed a couple of tests. I have an amazing best friend, and I don't know how that happened, but I'm glad it did. I've had one boy tell me he loves me, and I've told one boy I love him my whole life. We are not together anymore. I burned through friends like gas my first three years in college, and I'm both scarred and better for it. I have a strong personality, that at times I think is hard to like. I'm very sarcastic. I like things done certain ways, and I like things done well, and I like things done as early as possible. I am the only single one out of my group of close friends. I have a plan of where I want my life to go, almost down to the minute. I know what I want and when I want it, but usually I don't know how to get it. I like watching trashy TV, and I'm the biggest Netflix binger out there. My favorite dinner is this chicken stuffing cheese casserole thing that my mom makes. One time, I baked cobbler and cookies for a boy because I thought it would make him like me, it didn't. I hate wearing jeans and I hate my hair down. I don't like to have my face touched, but if you rub my back you basically own my heart. I'm not a brownnoser and there isn't much I hate more than people who are. I don't like short cuts and I don't like people who lie and cheat to get ahead. I have a passion for kids with cancer, and recently am discovering a passion for little babies as well. I go to a therapist and I'm probably the most noncompliant patient around, I just like to talk about my problems and vent to someone who can't go tell this person or that person and who can offer me advice. I'm learning how to slowly rebuild myself. I have acne, I've kind of always had acne, and it's just now really catching up to me how scarring that's been to my emotional well being. I try, really hard, at everything I do, but it never seems to be hard enough. I am probably the least memorable person you'll ever meet. I'm awkward, not the kind of first meet awkward, but the forever kind of awkward, where I get more awkward the more you know me. I have difficulty expressing my feelings a lot of the time, except for anger, I'm almost always angry. I like to save my money, and I work really hard for it. This past year I've been rejected in more areas of my life than I can even count. I always pretend to bounce back though, but I don't think I really have  from any of them. I thought a boy liked me since my break up, but it turns out he's just like all the others. I'm still friends with my ex and it's killing me inside, it's not good for me. I want to travel more than anything but when I sit and think about it I come to the stark realization that I would have to travel alone. I'm probably never going to have children, even though I want them badly. When I'm especially lonely, I pick up way more hours than I ever should at my two jobs. I like to be busy, but I hate not having down time. I like to be alone, but I hate to be lonely. I'm not the fun one in the group and I'm the first one to say maybe we shouldn't do this. I like the work that I do. I have a thirst for knowledge and there isn't much I like more than learning about all different kinds of things, I wouldn't mind always being in school in one way or another. I'd like to get my Phd some day. I'd love to be a writer, and I'd love to be a baker and I'd love to be a CEO of a mega corporation. Most of all, I'd like to be a nurse.

And if you asked me to describe myself in one word it would be this: a mess.

When it's not like coming home anymore

It used to be like coming home, I described it to my friend on the first day of classes that it used to be like coming back to not only professors, but friends in a way. And coming back to a whole new faculty, was like going back to freshman year. And after waiting 3 years to finally be a senior, I had no interest in going back to freshman year.

Walking into class used to feel like walking into a comfortable place, sure it was always dreaded, who has any interest in sitting in a 3 hour lecture anyway, no matter who was teaching it? But there still used to be a comfort in it. But now it just feels cold, in a way that's hard to explain. And it saddens me so much.

I had spent 3 long years looking forward to the peds portion of the curriculum, craving to be taught by the professor who was supposed to teach senior level. She was my dream professor, difficult, but so knowledgeable. She had worked in peds oncology, which is where I want to work, she was working towards her doctorate, was a nurse practitioner. She was who I wanted to become in a sense, I looked up to her and I was so hungry for this class. And then halfway through the summer I was told that she had left, and I was saddened, but hoped that the university would provide me with an equal replacement. but nothing can really replace the professor I was supposed to have.

And then a little further into the summer I found out my advisor had left the university as well. And that simply devastated me. I was still reeling from finding out the one professor I have spent the past 3 years looking forward to, only to find out that my advisor who I had spent the last 3 years getting close to, had left as well. There's a sense of abandonment there. On top of these things, 2 other core professors had left in my junior year, and it had been a tumultuous one because of it. There's a sense of abandonment in what had happened. What stung the most was that we, as students weren't notified of the professor change, and I, as an advisee was not notified of the fact that my advisor had left. I had to find out through friends and people who were at school over the summer about all of this.

And still, a week into school, there hasn't been a mention of the professors that have left, not one bit of acknowledgement.

I am sad about this. I am sad about the loss of my senior year. Senior year is supposed to be fun, and exciting, you are supposed to looking forward to the future but sad to leave behind these professors who you have come to know, and they have come to know you as well. But instead I am left with a bitter taste, and a sting in my heart that I can't quite shake. And only excitement to get out of school because I feel betrayed by my school.

Betrayed that I wasn't given a teacher of the same caliber as the one who left. Betrayed because we aren't told about it. Betrayed because I have lost my sense of family at this school.

It is no longer coming home. It will never be coming home again. It will always be just, here, now. And I hate just being here. And I miss how it used to be it. And I miss who used to be here. And it will never be the same.

How to outgrow your highschool friends

You're freshly 18 and you and your friends are going off to college, and you promise to stay in touch, and you promise to always be "best friends", and you promise to write and text and get together every chance you have.

And then freshman year is over, and you spend the summer with your friends, and things seem the same, but if you look deep enough you can start to see the separating. Everyone is starting to branch out, but you are still great friends, and you still keep your promises.

And then sophomore year is over, and you spend your summer working more and making time for friends less, they don't understand completely anymore, and keeping in touch through out the school year has lacked. They don't know about the little things anymore, and you start to make excuses not to get together as often because you are going in a different direction then they are. You are making plans, and working towards a future, and they are having fun.

And then junior year is over, and you spend your summer working 2 jobs, and mourning the loss of a relationship, and not texting back as quickly or jumping up to get the phone when it rings. You would rather go home and study or watch Netflix than put the effort into going out and pretending to have it as together as they do. They have spent their summer backpacking, and in an amazing internship, and traveling up and down the east coast. And you have spent yours planning your escape from this town, and your future, working 2 jobs, and exhausted.

But you get together one last time before school starts, and while you are all sitting around the fire chatting, you realize you have outgrown these beautiful girls. Each one with a sparkling personality and beautiful souls, but you just cant convey your wants and wishes to them anymore. They don't understand your soul, and while they laugh easily over something that you have to force to even smile over, you realize that you have outgrown them in every sense of the word. It doesn't make you love them any less, it doesn't make you not cherish their friendships, but you cannot talk to them anymore about your life and have them understand.

And that is such a lonely feeling.

Rant.

   I think that boys lately think they can do anything and everything to a girl/girls and just get away with it, that if not that girl, then the next one will still end up wanting them or pining over them, or making excuses for them. I myself have been in that situation, and it is embarrassing looking back on it and realizing just how many excuses I made for one boy, and why didn't any of my friends smack my head against a wall and yell at me to grow up and be done! Right now I'm watching a situation unfold where a guy is literally saying the exact same things to 2 different girls, and both girls know now, and both girls threaten to be done, and threaten to end it, and say they can't do it anymore, but at the end of the day, they're always still there, while they know that he is telling both of them I love you, and you're perfect, and amazing, giving both of them sweatshirts, and both of them flowers! This is an example of why guys keep getting away with stuff like this, the girl/girls are almost always still there in the end, no matter how much emotional manipulation, abuse, lies, etc. they have to endure.

It's like the ever growing popular mind set of teaching your boys (and girls) not rape, instead of teaching your girls (and boys) how to prevent it. When are we going to start teaching our boys that it is important not to emotionally rape either? At 16 years old why is this boy thinking it is okay to screw with not one, but two girls emotional well being. Is it fun? Is this what his home taught him to do? I don't know how far he has gone with either of these girls, but I can guarantee it is more than just a little kiss on the lips. Theses girls are going to have to live with the emotional bomb hole that this kid is leaving within them for years and years to come.

When they're 25 years old and wondering why they're sticking around with their boyfriend who has a couple girls on the sides, they're going to look back and it is going to be a trend. At 15 years old a boy taught me that it was "normal" to have a guy look elsewhere for the same things they are giving him, and it is "normal" for them to stick around and deal with it, because that is just how it is anymore.

Why do we let our boys grow up doing this? Why do we let our girls grow up enduring this? Why don't we start teaching our sons that it is just as important to respect a girls emotions, and mental wellbeing, as it is to respect their body? Where is the flaw in our society that it is teaching girls and boys that behavior like this is okay?

When girls have celebrities to look up to who spend their days and nights partying with multiple women, or men, when people like Rihanna go back to a man who beat the crap out of her, when Hilary Clinton stays with her husband after he cheats on her, when Anthony Weiner's wife stands strong by her man, it is not teaching young girls about commitment, it is teaching young girls and boys that it is okay to engage in these types of behavior because if the girl or woman you are currently with doesn't stand by you, then the next one will, or the first one will come back to you. And these people still hold positions of popularity and power.

How are we supposed to teach our girls to have more self respect than the women who are prevalent in todays society and walk away? How are we supposed to teach our boys that, while men who are successful and prominent take their women and jerk them around, it is important to treat the ones they come in contact with, with respect?

  

How to be young and wise

- Listen to those older, and younger who have more experience and are wiser.

Today I had the privilege to ride the bus with a nurse who is fabulous. I love her to death and her down to earth words and matter of fact ways of saying things, I love that she doesn't look at me like most people do and think I don't know anything. She loves the rules and she loves routine, and I love rules and I love routine. And she is the one nurse who I can have real conversation with at my place of employment. I wish I rode the bus with her every day.

We were talking about traveling today and my hope to move to Seattle, or Tennessee and all the dreams I have. And she told me to go. To just go, and when I came back with the I can't afford to move right after school she came back with work here for a year and then go with saved up money. When I came back with what if I get tied down in that year, what if a boy magically decides to want me, and she came back with be up front with any boy you might meet, say listen this is my plan and you can be along for the ride, or you can never get on the ride, it's up to you. And then she looked at me and said "you are young, you have dreams and you have goals, you want to do something and you have passion, so just do it. Don't talk yourself out of it, just do it." I left work today feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world, which is rare for me. As much as I love that job, it is draining me, because at the end of the day it isn't where I was supposed to be. But today I felt like it's where I was supposed to be, to have that conversation with her, and to have some of my dreams validated and not looked at like I was crazy by a "real adult."

I have a dear friend of mine who is so wise and so beyond her years. She is someone I look up to so much, she is my age, but she is so much brighter than me in life. And she gives the best advice around, and she has told me to go. I wish it was easier to take her advice, because my life would be so much easier if I did, but I seem to have to learn the hard way more often than not.

Yesterday I realized something though. I am okay. I am okay and I will be okay. I am not lonely anymore in the sense that I was. I still have lonely moments, but I am not lonely for a boy the way I was. I am not lonely for anyone the way I was. It's an empowering feeling, and it feels good. It finally feels good. I only need myself, and that is okay. And if I only have myself for the rest of my life, it will be okay.