Ugliness and Silly Fun

For quite some time now i have purposely left my blogs light and fun. I have avoided blogging all the crazy thoughts that run through my head constantly...mostly for fear that i will freak everyone out, or depress them and they will never read my blog again. The thing is I've decided that my life is a little or maybe a lot like the t.v. show M*A*S*H. Well not specifically, but in theory.

Let me explain, (and I love this show, by the way). I began looking over my previous blogs and was thinking how heavy they were...and I thought, 'well that's not a good representation of me.' I'd like to think of myself as very light-hearted, funny, goofy and always ready for a good time or to join in the party. So it might be a little psychotic, but it's a bit like MASH. The story line is set in a very serious, depressing and full of difficult situations, and yet they find ways to be funny and have a great time in spite of it all.

The new residents are out in full force at work right now...it's that time of year, and the med-students are eagerly trailing at their coat tails (literally). It almost made me giggle the other night at work watching 2 med students faces as they talked so excitedly about a patient and what they had planned for the day etc. It got me thinking. It is fascinating to me to watch the change that takes place in peoples faces over the years. It's the same change of face that happens to nursing students, med students, social workers, police in training, or as in M*A*S*H the difference between a private and a lieutenant. It is so obvious the difference in the face of a 'trainee' and that of one that has been in the 'force' for a few years, just by looking at someone you can tell at what stage they are. The difference, well...the reality of life, and the ugliness and difficulties that it brings.

Again, let me explain. Life is just beginning for these poor ignorant people. They are filled with wonder and excitement as they begin their careers and begin learning all that it takes to do their jobs. But slowly a change takes place in them. I clearly remember just getting out of college, a good friend of ours through-out college went to the police academy to become a sheriff. This was the goofiest, guy, always ready for a good time, or ready to start one, a dare-devil. He completed the academy and was a little different, but still the same guy, only with hints of changes (i.e. the hair cut), and a sutle serious under-tone. Then the years of working in the jail and on the streets. A change had taken place in his face.

The same is true I believe for a new mom, or a veteran mom...a newly-wed or a 10/20 year married veteran. We all start out with such altruism....that things are supposed to be a certain way, and when we suddenly realize that things aren't so, and that change is tuff, and life is ugly...that, I believe is called growing up.

So I fell into that category. I wanted to change the world, be the sort of nurse/mom that makes a difference. But the reality of life has set in, and I have to force myself back to that silly girl that I believe that I am inside, and make a concentrated effort to be goofy and light-hearted, because it's all too easy to get uptight, serious, and tense. We are all that same little girl (or boy)inside, the same one we were before tragedies hit us, or real life was realized. We must find the balance and believe that silliness and joy and fun can exist simultaneously as the ugliness of life....just like M*A*S*H. ...or better yet, what happens in us when we focusing on the joy of the perfect love that the Father extends to his children.

(this is the ugliness I get to see at work)
I was unfortunate to hear a sound again last Friday night that I dread the most. It is the most awful sound in all the world, and no one can argue it with me. It is the sound that comes out of a mommy the very moment her child has died. It fills the air, and for minute the world stops, I think even all of Heaven holds their breath, it is silent, except for the wail of a woman, alone with her baby in her arms. There is NOTHING more horrible, more sickening, than listening to a mom wail and cry things like....'my baby, my baby, my baby......wake up, wake up...sit up come on wake up....lets go home, lets just go home....can't we just go home.' The anguish, the sound as she cries comes from a place that is only tapped in that moment. No one can know her pain, but all the nurses and doctors hold back tears as they try and not think of themselves in her shoes. And it doesn't matter how old that 'baby' is, because a mom's children will always be her babies. This young mom is now a veteran in life, fighting just to make it through.

I really hate that sound. It haunts me sometimes at home. My job has definitely become harder and harder lately. To make matters worse, Friday night I could have jovially been scap-booking with the girls (or pretending to...or just talking, I don't scap-book) instead of listening to the harshness of reality.

So although a bit schizophrenic, I want my blog to more accurately describe me, with equal parts ugly reality and silly fun...a bit like M*A*S*H.


'Set your mind on the things above, not on earthly things.' Col 3:2
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." ~Jesus~ John 14: 1
This next one is SWEET
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? SHALL TROUBLE OR HARDSHIP or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. " Romans 8:35-39