So what’s new in Emilie’s life? Well I’m still in orientation at work for another 8 weeks or so. My preceptor is a mad man, extremely controlling and strange. I mean, I’m used to having to prove myself to a preceptor, but no so extensively and repeatedly. And I’ve had to adjust like my whole personality and work ethic so I appease him. For eleven weeks. It’s crazy. Like he wants me to be a good nurse, but he’s going to make me a murderer in the process.
What else has happened? Well I’ve seen some really crazy shit at work. I had an elderly patient who got attacked by a teenager with a two by four. I had a patient who hadn’t pooped for 50 days and his rectum basically exploded, and he still had poop left to poop. I had a man in his twenties thrown from a car, declared dead pretty much upon arrival. I’ve never seen a body so mangled, and it reminded me that even with all the people we save, that being a nurse is extremely hard sometimes. I do love the Emergency Department though, and I can’t imagine myself anywhere else.
I also fell in love with a beautiful man, who’s like 9 years older than me. He dumped me like four days after I told him I loved him. It was really sad for me. I have never fallen in love so hard and so fast, and even though it didn’t last long, it was one of those things that you don’t regret. It reminded me of how great and wonderful life is. And as it turns out, that guy would have been a wreck on my anxiety. So in all honestly I’m glad everything sort of ended before it really got going. It pulled me back out of the hole that Brent left me in, and gave me hope again.
So now I’m just working, learning to be a nurse, and hanging out at home with Remus. I’ve been a little lonely, but much better over all. My meds got switched around a bit, so I’ve had more panic attacks in the last couple of weeks than I’ve had in like six months. It’s also hot as fuck in the south, so I don’t feel too bad about hanging out with Remus cause it’s too fucking hot for me. But I’m doing well. I miss having the opportunity to hug my parents whenever I want, and not knowing when I’ll see them again. But life is pretty alright right now.
And hey, I updated you Internet. Maybe someday I’ll be a better companion for you.
Part of me realized we were fighting so adamantly because we still care, even if it’s only a little bit.
And then another part of me hoped we could get through it and be together in the end. And that hope makes me want to vomit.
You never understand what it’s like to be the abused wife until you become her. You never understand how a person could go back to the partner that beat the shit out of them until you become that person.
Fuck I can’t wait until that part of me dies. But every time I think it’s gone, it rears its ugly head again and I’m right back where I started.
I worked two shifts this week as a nurse in the busiest ED in the area and I absolutely loved it. My preceptor on the second day trusted my skills and abilities and let me act independently, and it was totally crazy and fantastic!! I went into the pyxis on my own, performed procedures on my own, even had my own patient or two. I LOVED it. Granted, I didn’t get to see anything super duper exciting, but that will come with time. I performed my job well, made an impact, and made an ED visit better for several people. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I’m so glad the idea of becoming a nurse sort of fell into my head all those years ago, because I love every minute of what I do :)
Yesterday I officially moved out of Brent’s apartment - I turned in the keys, picked up my car and I never have to see that verbally/emotionally abusive/alcoholic asshole ever again!!!
But I feel ready so I thought I would give this whole blogging thing a shot again. I have missed being able to pour all my feelings out onto a page and make them more real, more meaningful to someone other than myself. Truth be told, I haven’t been doing much of anything in the past year to take care of myself. But then I think back to that summer in 2012 and how I sat on the curb in front of my apartment building with the crisis line in one hand and my own phone in the other, sobbing. And then I realize I’m a greater woman, a stronger person than I was then.
I have missed being able to pour my entire soul into my little blog Internet. And so much has changed, and it’s been so long since I felt like I could tell you how much everything has changed. You hardly know me now at all Internet. But I’d like to change that. See, I’m starting a new career, and I’d like to show the world the experiences I have and document the amazing, heart wrenching, loving stories I will experience in the next 30 or 40 years in the nursing profession.
I think I left you in my apartment at college, Internet. With the loss of my best friends, I didn’t feel that I could trust some of the readers on the other side of the screen. So I kept my feelings to myself, hoping that one day I could return, but so much and yet so little of my life has gone by in these last few years. I want to start trusting and loving you again, Internet readers.
So here’s where I am today. A registered nurse. A college graduate. Single. Beautiful. Intelligent. A cat mother. Getting ready to start over in a new town, a new state. It was a hard battle getting here, but the sun is starting to shine again for me. There’s light in every part of me, there is no more darkness. No more hatred of parts of me. Granted, there’s that little piece that still holds on to Brent, but that part of Emilie will grow smaller and smaller until she can join in the long line of past events that have molded me and shaped me. That ever growing line of people who show me what to look for in another person.
But this little part of me, this little Emilie - she is the strongest of them all. She has reminded me of who I always have been. She got lost in the pain and heartbreak that took over me for the last 6 or 8 months. Since August. She drowned in the words that Brent said to me, and just kept diving back into the water, no matter how much it hurt. That Emilie forgot her values of strength and beauty and independence. She forgot that she was never supposed to let a man think of herself as less than a person. She forgot that she wasn’t supposed to keep loving someone who thought she was fat. She forgot that she didn’t need a person to make her feel whole, because she already was. She forgot that it’s never acceptable to allow herself to love someone who threw her feelings in the trash, stepped all over her self respect, and brought her shame. She forgot that she didn’t have to live with someone who she felt she had to apologize for. She forgot that she never wanted to be with someone who hurt her, and who caused her to hurt herself.
That’s what Brent was to me, Internet. And even though I cry a little while writing these words, I’m stronger. I can smile through those tears, because I learned. Oh have I learned.
Enough of that person, enough of who I was. On Saturday, I’m leaving the town that I has brought me many lessons, both good and bad. I’m returning to the home that Brent ad I shared, but it’s not home anymore. I’m starting over, I’m the new bird in the old phoenix ashes. The sun will shine down on me and my ceil colored scrubs and I will be me again. I will find people who want to bask in that sunshine and I will drink long islands and I will be happy. I will never again forget what makes me Emilie fricking Michelle, Registered Nurse. And not only that, but in the freaking emergency department. I will be a part of something so much greater than I could have ever imagined.
I don’t know where my life goes from here Internet, but I’d like you to come with me. I never thought I’d be at this place, graduated from college with the whole world open to me. I’m taking on that world and all it has to offer. In two weeks, I start my career. In five days, I start fresh. In maybe eight days, that apartment where I felt so much hurt will be gone forever. And My new red phoenix wings will glow red in the sun.
