Poetry is me
I love writing poetry. I am not a professional, please do not judge me. (Although, I think that is why poetry is so fun, there aren’t a lot of rules, at least that is my interpretation). I am sure that if I were to have taken a poetry class in college, I might be better at writing it. Nonetheless, in the early years of post-high school graduation, I was busy trying to become a nurse! Interestingly enough, I ended up becoming an RT.
*What is an ‘RT’? A respiratory therapist (RT) is someone who runs around the whole hospital trying to help people of all ages BREATHE!
Being an RT was NOT something I thought about doing… ever. But try as I might, (or as I might not) my efforts were not appreciated and the nursing schools would not accept me into their programs. Thankfully, my dear friend Barbara Anne (also an RT) suggested that I try applying for the respiratory therapy program at Boise State University in Boise, ID.
I had no clue what an RT did, but I was desperate to find something and complete school.
Barbara Anne assured me that being RT was great. As an RT you worked with doctors and nurses. As an RT you could work 12-hour shifts and get paid almost as much as a nurse.
I was immediately sold and Barbara Anne emailed one of her professors who promptly called me and invited me to apply. It was so easy! I thought if getting accepted was this easy, RT school would be a breeze!
NEWS FLASH RT school was not a breeze. In fact, it was more like the harsh winds of a hurricane than a so-called soft oceanic “breeze.” I almost quit several times. I was very intimidated by everything. But loved the rush that the work gave me. To get by I would write poetry.
Poetry seemed to ease the pain especially when mixed with anger and alcohol.
After graduating (on the Deans list by pure luck) I moved back to Bend and was able to work at Norco. I was told Norco was a place where RTs go to die. I knew it wasn’t the place for me but St. Charles wasn’t hiring. As I drug my sorry ass to Norco for weeks on end wanting to die I wrote poetry and drank. I wrote some good ones and some sad ones (I will post on here with dates so you know where I was coming from).
After the three-month stint in the ‘Norco slammer’, I got the dream job at St. Charles. My mom was a nurse and worked there too. It was really special having my mom work in the same hospital with me. We had previously worked at two other hospitals together but this last time was the best time.
My mom passed away in 2017 from endometrial cancer after returning suddenly from a travel assignment in Palm Springs. She was working ‘as needed’ at St. Charles while doing nursing travel work. She was working in Palm Springs when the pain from cancer brought her to her knees (quite literally). She couldn’t walk. She had to quit her assignment and drive all the way back home to Bend.
I had been traveling abroad for a month and when my mom said she had to quit her travel assignment and abruptly come home I was shocked. We had been talking a lot on my vacation abroad via Facetime. I had been talking to her more regularly than I normally did. (When I used to go on vacation I was sometimes unreachable but this time I called her more than once to chat about my journey).
I read her the poetry of my travels and she loved it so much. She had always loved my writing. She would make me spiral-printed notebooks of my writing from old Facebook posts and bought me books on how to write poetry better, she was my biggest fan.
I didn’t write a lot of positive content before or after her death. I tried but it wasn’t authentic and it was usually when I was drunk.
When I stopped drinking, I stopped writing. I thought maybe alcohol had given me some sort of superpower to write. But that was just a lie I told myself because I eventually started writing again. I was so happy when the fog lifted and I could be me again!
I hope you enjoy some of the different posts here. I can’t promise they will all be happy. I think being vulnerable and showing the darker sides of our past and present shadow selves is important and real. I will also post some stories I’ve written, blurbs about biking may be a weird dream I had in 2008! Who knows!
Thanks for stopping by! If you liked even a little bit of this, keep coming back! If not, go breathe!
