Tonight was fantastic. I got to enjoy the company of some of my very best friends while relishing in the entertainment of thespians. I really love the theatre. I always have. I love good stories and good music. People that are willing to perform in front of large audiences truly amaze me. This evening I was blessed with the opportunity to see Kinky Boots. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.  It appeals to me on so many levels: it's super funny, great music, dancing, red glitter everywhere, and homosexuals. Yes, I said it. HOMOSEXUALS. 

I guess I must be more relaxed than the average, tightly wound American. That is not to say that I am not a member of the Type A Personality community because I am.  Everything neat.  Everything tidy.  Maintain control.  Do the right thing.  These are all things that I hold myself to all of the time. (or at least try to)

Over the past week, many things have been brought to my attention.   I would like to discuss these things today.  (Remember folks- I have a dry sense of humor.  If you don't appreciate that, please feel free to leave my page and NEVER and I mean NEVER return)

1. If you don't like someone, avoid them.

Growing up I was always taught to respect the people around you.  It was okay if you didn't like them but you had to respect them. What you didn't have to do was choose to be around that person.  In fact, my father told me to be civil but to move on. If you don't mesh with a person or a group of people then why worry yourself with what they have to say or do?  I will throw out an example for you.   I should preface it by saying that I am extremely liberal, especially when it comes to human rights.  I know that the KKK still exists.  I honestly don't believe I have much in common with people who believe in the oppression of other people based on color or creed or anything else for that matter. How do I deal with the KKK?  I avoid them.  I don't seek them out.  I don't act as an undercover spy to expose them.  I avoid them.  I have a tight grasp on the reality that idiots like that have been around for centuries and I cannot stop them.  What I can do is live by example and spread my message of love and acceptance to the people that I come into contact with.  Why cause trouble?  Who has time for that?  I mean unless you are sitting at home, jobless, childless, petless...who has time to spend their life making trouble for other people?  It is ridiculous.

2.  Don't put your hands on others.

What kind of person can't control their emotions to the point of hitting another human?  It is literally a sign of poor coping mechanisms.  If someone scratches your perfect little car by accident, get their information and report it to their insurance or report it to your own insurance. Don't physically attack them.  If you lose control in a situation like this, you will lose.  This is no longer the Wild West and someone will call the police or worse, they will video the whole thing and then put it on YouTube. While we are on it, people need to stop shooting and stabbing each other, too. I am pretty sick of hearing how people are getting shot by each other or by police officers.  Put your guns down people.  (Now don't go screaming anti-gun control messages to me.  I am a gun owner and you bet your sweet ass I would shoot to kill anyone who came into my home to harm me or my family.)  Honestly, why do you need to shoot people????? Should police officers be allowed to carry guns?  Absolutely.  To even allude to the fact that they shouldn't is ridiculous.  People are stupid and make stupid decisions and sometimes police officers need to provide deadly force to protect the greater good with said force. What do you do if a police officer is around?  You treat him like he's the freaking principal at your high school. Show respect and only respect.  If you have a complaint, take it to the police station.  DO NOT RUN.  DO NOT FIGHT.  This person is carrying a loaded weapon and is trained to shoot and kill.  Consider that a PSA.  I would be willing to explore this further but absolutely don't have room in this post for that.

3. Stop Meddling.

LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE.  It's one thing to let them know what you think about their political stances or public opinions but seriously, LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE.  Stop meddling in their personal lives.  Stop gossiping and making accusations.  What kind of person has time to attempt to ruin another person's life?  It's ridiculous.  Here is an idea: Put all of that energy into your own family, your health, your life, or do something more productive.  Here's a novel thought- Take a photography class or plant a garden or take a walk with someone you love and enjoy spending time with.  BE PRODUCTIVE. 

4.  Find a sense of humor.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, learn to laugh.  If you don't like a certain type of humor, refer to #1 of this blog entry. I mean it.  When did we become so involved in the business of others that we can't even take a joke?  There are all kinds of things to laugh at in this world.  In fact, I love to laugh at myself.  I also love when other people laugh at me. Sometimes I offend people with my inappropriate humor but seriously, this doesn't make me the anti-Christ.  It simply means that you probably weren't in the audience I was targeting with that stand-up act.  We should all try to laugh every single day of our lives.  Seriously.  Laughter is the best medicine and I recommend actively seeking it out.

5. CALM DOWN

Most of us live pretty comfortable lives.  If you are reading this blog you have a comfortable enough life that you have access to a computer.  Take about 40 deep breaths a day.  Relax.  No matter what happens, life goes on.  Life is an adventure.  Change your perspective and instead of being uptight and ready to attack, relax.  Learn to find the beauty in the world around you.  Read my entry regarding Paradise Found.  CTFD.  Make it your mantra.  

So that's it for now.  Avoid the things in life that you don't want to see or hear or be a part of.  Practice self-control and be productive.  Laugh a lot and at every opportunity.  We only have one life and it is slipping away as every waking hour passes.  Don't waste it on things that aren't worth your time.

As I was reading my last blog it occurred to me that there is a possibility that I might have offended people with my sarcasm and humor.  If you are one of those people, please know that was not my intention. If I offended you, then I apologize. I was simply writing an anecdotal replay of some of the funnier aspects of ER nursing.   What I left out of my post was the serious side of the job that nurses and staff members in this field deal with.  I would like to take this opportunity to explore those things now.  If you are a person that reads my blog for fun, this won't be fun.  This will be painful.  This might slice your heart open and even make it bleed a little.

ER nursing is not for the weak.  Period.  You cannot be physically weak, emotionally weak or intellectually weak. We see truly horrible things.  Seriously.  We see so many people at their absolute worst and it is heartbreaking.  One cannot stay in ER medicine for long if they aren't truly passionate about it.  I guess in order to understand me fully we must take a walk back in time together.

My mother said that I was destined to help others that it came naturally to me.  I guess she was right although I didn't realize that I could do that through nursing until 1996ish.  When I decided to go to nursing school it really felt like the stars were aligning.  I knew that I would finally be able to help countless people.  Pediatrics in particular.  I loved and still love taking care of pediatric patients.  I was going to be a Pediatric Nurse from the word GO! That is until I witnessed a car accident outside of the business that I was working for at the time.  There was a child involved and I was able to help and comfort him until the helicopter landed in our parking lot and whisked the patient away to our local trauma center.  It was at that precise moment that I knew that I was destined to be an ER nurse and nothing else.

In the past 19 years I have seen it all.  I have looked into a patient's eyes and told them that I loved them as they died because they were there alone and I couldn't bear them leaving this earth without them hearing it one more time, even if it was from a stranger.  I have taken care of children that were badly burned over 99% of their bodies all the while showing them the love of a mother because their own mother was dying in the room next door and I knew that she was the only person in the world that they wanted.  (She couldn't be there so I was trying to help her by loving her children while giving them the medical care that they needed.) I have performed CPR on my patient's wife because her heart stopped while I was giving care to her husband.  I have held the hands of mothers whose children were in horrible industrial accidents.  I have hugged and laughed with my patients and made them feel like they mattered.  I have a record-breaking door to cath lab time of 6 minutes.  That is UNREAL.  I know that my team saved the life of that patient having a heart attack and it feels good to know that.  I have held dying babies in one room and then within a few minutes had to wipe my tears and move to my next patient who was suffering from something much more minor and act like they were the only patient I had seen that day.  I have appropriately cared for amputated legs and hands and arms so that the surgeon would be able to reattach them.  I have performed sexual assault exams on elderly women who were so vulnerable that some one very evil took advantage of them.  I have had multiple cases like the ones listed all on the same day.  Such horrible, heartbreaking shifts that I didn't leave my house for days after just trying to wrap my head around the things that I had seen and the losses that I had experienced when I was unable to make it better for my patients.  

Why did I do this and continue to do this?  BECAUSE THEY MATTER TO ME.  Every one of them.  Even the ones that check in for things that aren't necessarily emergencies.  I love my patients.  Most of the people who come to the ER without emergencies do so because they don't realize they have another choice in the matter.  They are doing what they were shown by their parents' parents to do.  The truth is that those patients give ER nurses a kind of "break" from the patients that literally rip out the hearts of health care providers. Those are the patients that are EASY to help.  Getting pain under control, giving IV fluids to a dehydrated patient, splinting broken bones, giving IV antibiotics to patients with dental abscesses...those are the easy patients.  Those are the patients that we get to see first hand the difference that we make in their lives.  They come in miserable and they leave feeling better.  Who wouldn't like that?  Those are the patients that we get to joke with and make laugh.  The diligent type of ER nursing that I practice is extremely rewarding and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

I absolutely love being an ER nurse.  I have said it before and I will say it again.  I LOVE BEING AN ER NURSE.  I would also like to say that I am pretty darn good at it. Not only do I love the ER but I also love my patients and they love me, too.  I see each and every one of them as my fellow man.  I see that we are in this fight together.  Does it become frustrating at times? Absolutely it does but that is just part of it.  Everything in life worth fighting for becomes frustrating at times.  Parenting, marriages, being a homeowner, religion...all frustrating when you are passionate about making them work.  

When you look at an ER nurse you are seeing the part of them that they are willing to show you.  What you aren't seeing is the part of their soul that will forever be changed because of the things that they have seen. If you were able to look more closely at their hearts, you would see scars.  For me, those scars are good things.  Those are tiny slices that make me more understanding.  Those slices keep the patients in my past alive in a strange sort of way.  They deeply touched me and I will carry them with me always.  Someday, when I get to heaven, I envision meeting them again and hugging them and telling them that I am sorry that we couldn't have done more to save them.  ER nurses are humanitarians.  True Humanitarians.  They love people or they wouldn't be able to do the job that they do. It's that simple.  

So next time you see an ER nurse laughing inappropriately or maybe blogging with humor that you may not understand, do not condemn them.  I assure you they are doing their best and most of the time, if they have been doing it for many years, those are the nurses that you want taking care of you.  They have learned how to juggle the emotion, the knowledge, the grief and the understanding that it takes to be as perfect of an ER nurse as possible.  I have always said that if humans are the body of Christ then nurses are His hands. We are doing God's work with every person that we touch whether it is to save a life or to wash the feet of the homeless.  Sometimes we joke but I promise you  (and I am speaking for all of the ER nurses out there) we are doing everything out of love for each and every one of you that need us.  The truth is that we realize that just because it isn't an emergency for us, we realize that it IS an emergency for our patients.  We are just trying to make the world a better place.

There are worse things than sitting on a balcony in an overwater bungalow listening to the rain and writing a blog in bora bora. It is a completely surreal experience. In fact, I have told my husband that it is such a breathtaking view that it is almost as if someone in Hollywood has created a virtual backdrop just to make my trip even better.

This is paradise. This is the place that ruins the rest of the planet for you. This is the place that no matter where I go from now on I will be saying, "this is amazing but it's not Bora Bora."

The local culture is fascinating and the people are the most genuinely friendly people I have ever met. It is probably because they are surrounded by a double ring of ocean. "Moana" (mo-a-nah) means ocean inTahitian. This moana is slightly different than the ocean that touches all other bodies of land. (And by all others, I mean ALL OTHERS). It's many different shades of blue and green and turquoise. I hate to use the word "unreal" because it is definitely real, but also definitely unimaginable. From the darkest navy blue to the lightest shade of turquoise that can exist without fading into white...that is the palette of blue that the Great Artist has used when creating this portion of the planet. The Tahitian islands were created on this planet about 3 million years ago. Earth is much older than that. I believe that Tahiti was an after thought for God. After he created this amazing big blue ball, he thought "dang. Wouldn't this have been a great idea...wait. I'm God. Who says it's too late to add the final touches to my masterpiece?" And then he created a small crack in the crust of earth's shell and let just enough lava pour through so that the Polynesian islands would be created. You did good God. Once again you knew what you were doing.

Paradise. Simply put this is paradise. I know I'm not the first person to call Bora Bora paradise because it would be much like two people calling a banana a banana. So that brings the question I have been pondering: What is paradise?

Is this paradise because of the visual beauty itself? That would be the obvious answer. It is so blatantly gorgeous that it overcomes your senses and let's nothing else in. No thoughts of work, no thoughts of inadequacy, no pressure to want more or to do more...why would there be thoughts like this? There is no room in Bora Bora for thoughts such as these. Even I cannot become distracted in this environment and we all know that I have spastic thought processes and get distracted much more often than the average joe...But not here. Here my senses are filled with nothing but peace and beauty. So is that what paradise is? A feeling of peace while being surrounded by beauty? I think I might be on to something with that...

So it's got to happen. I must move my family here. I would be crazy not to. If I have truly found the place where my heart isn't longing for absolutely anything at all, why would I not pack up and move? Right? Life is so short and I'm about half way through with mine.

And then it occurred to me. I have missed the big picture. It's not about Bora Bora, it is about me. The internal peace I feel in Bora Bora is simply because my senses are overwhelmed with beauty. As I have said, there is absolutely no room for any other thought process when you are here.

But what if I change my perspective? What if I peel back that layer of cloudy film covering the perspective I carry with me in my everyday life? What will I find? Well, let's see:

Let's start with myself. I am a relatively intelligent, relatively attractive, strong willed and open-minded woman. In this analogy, I am Mt. Otemanu. I am rising high above my own little paradise and surrounded by beauty. Sometimes, rain clouds engulf me and I am unable to see the beauty of my world that is right within my reach but that does not mean it isn't there. It is definitely there.

In my world, the beautiful lagoon can be found in my daughter's blue eyes. Captivating and calming, with the capability of drawing you in with one glimpse and never letting you go. A constant presence keeping you anchored and real. Giving me a reason to awaken each day, just so that I can be part of her world. Her spirit touches all of my shores, making me even more beautiful while doing so.

The vast variety of ocean life from the sharks, to the manta rays, to the turtles and the small fish ...those are found in the spirit of my son. They all have the persistent need to live freely and exist beyond all limits. Qualities that remind me that I can do anything I want to do. That I shouldn't merely exist but that I should grab life and take it. That I should feel the fear and do it anyway.

The ring of land that surrounds the island, the Motu, that is my husband's physical presence. Always there, always protecting the mountains, the lagoon and the sea life...protecting me, my daughter and my son.

The people that inhabit this small island represent my husband's soul. Always smiling. Always lending a hand. Always embracing life. Loyal to their culture and their history they take a stand for what they believe and yet do not punish you for what you believe. My husband encompasses this type of humanity in his every move. He is the person that we should all strive to be. He is the type of person that I strive to be. He is just a higher quality of human being.

So you see...it is all about perspective. We all have the beauty of Bora Bora in our own lives, it is just harder to see. Sometimes we have to be willing to change our perspective. The beauty is sometimes harder to find but it is there.

In a few days I will board a plane to leave the most magnificent slice of heaven that I have ever found. This place where the words Tahiti Nui mean so much more than "big Tahiti". The word Nui means infinite. All encompassing. Everything. Tahiti is everything.

I would agree. Tahiti is everything. But I will be traveling home to my own little slice of heaven. A place where my own paradise awaits me every single day. And I cannot wait to embrace my life with a changed perspective. My own little paradise Nui awaits me, I just have to be willing to see it.

PS- I am already saving money to return to Bora Bora. There is absolutely no way that I can finish my life without returning to this most magnificent island. I highly suggest that you do the same.