early morning musings

Written at 7:15am, and posted now since my iPhone doesn't let me post
to my blog... (how cool did I just sound!?!)

I'm sitting in the conference room at work enjoying my breakfast of a
chik-fil-a chicken biscuit and a vent decaf iced vanilla latte from
starbucks... Ahh, what a way to end a night shift, only to begin a CPR
class without ever leaving the hospital! I'm bumming off Erlanger's wi-
fi (because there's not really much else you can bum off them,
including a respectable paycheck...) and sitting in the glorious,
momentary silence. I should have gone to staff meeting like a good
little employee, but darn it, I worked all night and I want a little
peace and quiet.

Going downstairs for my breakfast, I got to experience the side of the
hospital that is my favorite. Those early morning hours, when the
doctors are coming sleepily onto their shifts and everything else is
quiet - patients are still asleep, families haven't come to visit,
vendors aren't open, it is calm and still and I love that. It's the
only time that (the adult side of) a hospital has felt like a place of
healing to me. I'd forgotten how much I like it.

On an entirely different note, it is strange to think that in 24
hours, my world will be turned a but tipsy turvy. That I will never
come to work from our duplex after tonight ever again. That my husband
will live in Birmingham, and I will be limboing somewhere in the
middle. That every time I go back to the 'ham, it will be like I'm on
vacation, but with all my stuff there. I am so afraid of feeling
displaced, like I don't quite fit anywhere anymore. If course I will
always fit with mark, but the place, our home, won't really be home to
me. I think that I might become thankful of this unit, of this
constant in my life, where everything has schedules and laid out plans
and backup plans if those plans happen to fail. Here, we are in
CONTROL. We have it handled. It is our job, and it is what we're good
at. And when everything else is spinning out of balance, when I'm not
sure where home really is, I will come here, to the place where I will
always have friends, and always have babies who depend on me. And when
I get tired of being here, if being in control of everything, I will
go back to my semi-permanent vacation spot and spend time with my
sweet husband, who will let me fall apart and be out-of-control and
stressed and confused. Mark is the glue that holds me together some
days. And I love him for that, and so many other things.

I'm beginning to think that I may make it through these two years in
one piece. Here's hoping...