Quitting my Job to Travel the World

“New Beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” –Lao Tzu

I was on a late-night Pinterest binge the other night thanks to chronic insomnia as a result of being a night shifter for the last few years. I read this quote, and man did it summarize exactly how I am feeling. While I am incredibly excited, stressed out, and nervous for this new adventure we are about to embark on there is an incredible amount of sadness that I am struggling with these days. While we aren’t leaving forever, there are definitely many endings that are about to happen. Working at the hospital as an acute care nurse (as most of my peers know) is not an easy job and the struggle is real my friends! But, I realize how deeply I am going to miss these people. We have experienced a lot together from seeing each other grow as new graduate RN’s, having tremendously challenging nights at the hospital, collaborating together on a patient situation on what is best, experiencing sadness together for a patient we worked our hardest on, experiencing those rewarding nursing feelings together, sharing stories about our home life on our down time, to complaining about the absurdity of some physician who doesn’t want to deal with our critical 3 AM phone calls. It has been such a wild ride. I have grown so much as a nurse but also as a person. Although that hospital broke a lot of us, I will be forever thankful that such beautiful relationships blossomed from it. Thank you for the memories friends, and most of all, for becoming such an important part of my life.

Change is Never Easy

While friendships aren’t coming to an end, I have built some incredible and unexpected relationships with some amazing people. I am sad to leave that. It feels like my friendships for this first time are at such a positive and enriching peek in my life. I am afraid it won’t be there when I get back or that things will change too much, because as time moves us forward, it is unavoidable that we will evolve. I know that the people I have in my life now support this adventure 100%, but I feel absolute sadness knowing that our friendships are going to have to survive via Skype and text for a long while. I’am definitely going to miss our house, cozy bed, our cool new TV, almost weekly homemade dinners at my family’s, hosting my mom when she visits, going to breakfast with Christine and Kira, friend dates with Megan & Yuriko, and cuddle time with my little sister. While life isn’t perfect, I’d say it feels pretty damn good right about now. The truth is, it will never feel like the perfect time to take on such an adventure. Then again, that is what makes it so exciting. All I have to do is take the leap! On a hopeful note, I will be back eventually, and the people that love me will still be there.

I am excited for the new friends we will meet along the way, and for the new families we will get to be a part of in this new chapter.

Love, Nurse Vanessa