Another Ending, a New Beginning

So, after 27 months of blood, sweat, and tears, all I have to show for it is this piece of paper:

I totally look hot in the picture though, right?!

For 27 months, I faithfully went to school and clinicals everyday to have my education summed up in about 50 minutes and 100 questions. I would say it was anti climatic but as the guy in the testing center handed me this glorious piece of paper, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed with emotion. Tears started to stream down my face. Not the sexy kind either, the mascara streaked, sob-inducing kind.

It is finally over, the study sessions, the not living with my husband debacle, the disrespect that accompanies being a student. Complete!

I'd appreciate it I would only be addressed from here on out as Dr. Nurse Morgan, CRNA* (kidding**).

*not a real doctor, but I could play one on TV

**not kidding.

Orange you glad I didn't say yellow...

... or something to that effect.

My lips are stained orange from my fat free fruit-cicle (part of the depression diet*). While I loathe myself in these self pity moments, I can't help but think this one has sparklers coming out of its ass (the moment...not me...not the Popsicle**).

Aaron always eats the orange Popsicles so I don't have to, leaving me with my favorite fruity flavors. This is one of the reasons I married him, aside from his obviously curly hair and tight ass.

Screw it, two orange Popsicles left in the box, 54.03 days left in the depressive funk.

*The depression diet occurs when I am away from Aaron. I get really fit and only eat diet food because I feel bad for myself. I also work out a lot to kill the time. This is in contrast when we are reunited and celebrate our love with cupcakes.
**According to spellcheck, Popsicle has the P capitalized...yeah, I don't get it either.

Your love is my drug

I peered over the drapes, my eyes larger than normal. There it was, a beating human heart, squeezing curiously wondering why everyone was staring. I watched as all the blood left the patient's body, then curiously circled back, like a ride at Disneyland or something. I watched as the EKG tracing went flat and the heart stopped. I also watched as the heart quivered and returned to life, good as new. I knew the answers to the questions. I used large needles and powerful drugs. If heart surgeons are Gods, then I was freaking Cleopatra today.

Why Xanax should be OTC

I sit in the middle of an empty apartment. Exactly one year ago I was surrounded by people and my gut was filled with lonely dispare. Fast forward three hundred sixty five days and I am alone, surrounded by empty pizza boxes, my gut with empty dispare.

(*Author's note: these whiny self pity parties will cease and desist in 71 days...FYI..that would be because that is when this CRAZY JOURNEY ENDS...WOOP WOOP!).

I have begun my cardiac anesthesia rotation with a broken heart. Ironic, right?! Today's scene at the airport could have been the cliffhanger of a romantic movie-woman leaves man at the airport, tears streaming down her face. Except to paint a more realistic picture, woman cries hysterically, wiping snot and mascara everywhere.

Sitting, waiting, wishing

Here I sit with Jack Johnson on Pandora to my right and a full cup of coffee to my left. Its 8:36 pm. My brain should be swarming with the right anesthetic management of cerebral aneurysms but there is a pit in my gut that will not let me think such things*. My brain is burned with the image of a road sign I pass every day: "I-40 to Albuquerque next right." Not only to I find myself veering towards the exit, but I want to get a screw driver, take the sign down, and put it in my pocket.

Aaron and I do not just miss Albuquerque, we yearn for it. I don't know if its for the comfort of the familiar in our chaotic world or for the fact that we were a happy family there. We were NOT a married couple in separate household getting by seeing each other on the weekends and an occasional dinner date. Let me clarify, we ARE a happily married couple more in love than ever, just a little distressed with our self-induced situation.

In a sick twist of fate, in 34 more days, I will be able to take the exit "I-40 east." But instead of stopping (permanently, not for the visit we have planned) I have to keep heading east for my cardiac rotation. I am excited and grateful for a new experience but am disappointed in my graduate school for not securing the proper rotations for my class in Arizona.

This small town feeling will all disappear at the end of August once I finally reach my destination and have those four little letters to add behind my name....

*Side note, I'm just writing the case up-I already successfully managed this case-even after the aneurysm burst!*

Let's wrap it up pretty like a Christmas package

Tomorrow will begin the 3-2-1 countdown

3-third to last test I will take (ever)*

2-pre-board exam

1-the only exam that will ever matter-my boards.

So, my goal, wrap this business up and focus on the light at the end of the tunnel. However, I'm left pondering how to focus on the light when I cannot grasp on to a moment of time to myself. I currently see the end as a free fall after coursing through some pretty treacherous canyon lands. Aaron and I have been twisted, turned, and sometimes thrown under water through our journey. The offer of stopping on some dry land is appealing but still in the distance. Should I be grateful that time is moving at light speed or horrified that I just can't keep up with myself?

The next six months I will be on my own. And for a person who got married so she could be legally clingy and dependant, I know I am going to have to put on some big girl pants and kick ass; I just always thought I'd have my side kicks cheering me on closer.

I should probably mention that no matter how bad it gets, I'm always smiling under my OR mask.

*This is a lie, I was researching doctorate programs instead of studying today