Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Here

Two days away from work are always better than just one, and a week away allows the necessary distance to develop, to allow different body rhythms to arise, maybe even to approach relaxation.


Sitting on the beach plodding through a Kellerman crime novel instead of a heavy tome about Crusader history or modern politics, nice breeze against my bare legs, the sounds of waves and happy people, occasionally still my thoughts brush up against work and I get that little visceral freeze-up of stress. I blow it away with a deep breath.



In nursing, as in medicine in general, the expectation is that the work will go perfectly. Everything is over-wrought and rechecked. Confirmed by others. Documented. It's stressful, and this can sometimes be compounded by demanding people. Personality-disordered lungers. Crystal addicts. The demented.

One of the tricks to functioning at that level is to find a way to relax into it.

That's an unnecessary abstraction here, though.