Borrowed Steel

This week has been absolute murder. Two massive heart attacks on Sunday, an unexpected code in the most isolated section of the ED on Monday, and tonight was just.... blecchhh. Ten hours of running my ass off for people who really didn't need it, just to make room for the people who possibly really *did* need it... thankless, endless...

I got home and realized all I'd eaten today was a hospital-made tuna salad sandwich. And that I got shit for sleep last night. And was subsequently in an utterly foul mood.

Shortly, sweetly: It's a rare thing in life to find someone who finds even your shittiest of moments endearing. I don't know how many profanities spewed from my lips in that brief venting session, but I do recall the forgiving look on his face.

The guilt is overwhelming at times - the feeling that in the effort to care for so many others during my working hours, I've bled myself dry of any inclination to feed the ones I love most with the attention and respect they deserve once I've come home.

Then she says, "Mom, I've been with you at work for an hour, and I'm tired. You still have nine hours to go. Sheesh."

And he says, "I was driving today, when suddenly it hit me."

And somehow, it works. I don't know how. Part of me is waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop. Things fall apart. In my previous experience, letting go of the guard is a direct path to humiliation, heartbreak. Being on the other side of the nurses' station, so to speak. Things fucking up in my personal life at this point would mean the loss of not only my love, but my best friend. The risk we've taken is so enormous. And I'm a selfish, tired, ornery human being. The fact that I even write this shit speaks to a certain level of narcissism. It's harder and harder, as I get older, to accept that someone - anyone - could really know me that well and still accept me. The cracks just keep getting deeper, and I'm not sure if caring less what other people think is a sign of maturity and self-respect or simply apathy, self-preservation, in response to what I do, see, hear, smell, and live every day at work.

In so many ways, I am so unworthy of the many blessings in my life. I wish I had more to give to the people I most want to give to.

And in so many ways, I'm so tired of analyzing and am working toward simply believing that maybe it's possible that I can be an ornery, overworked, exhausted shell of a human being at times, and yet still be worthy of using his arm as a pillow, of being a mother to a girl who is on the cusp of so many beautiful, terrifying things.

Ten years. Ten years since Dad died; ten years since Maddie was born. I have crow's feet, cavities born of her birth that are long overdue for attention. My car is the ultimate metaphor of my life, even still (my poor cars...): running on empty, in dire need of an oil change, but still, somehow, getting me from one place to another.

It's a crapshoot, really. I don't know how the fuck I got here.

But I'm so grateful. I am so, so grateful.