For some reason they call it work.

On Sunday, sitting in the pew, I couldn't focus on the words spoken or the songs sung. I could only think of one thing: my patients.

My job is unique. I'm paid to take care of peoples' physical needs. But the more and more I'm in this job, the more I know it's so much more than a job. It's humanity.

It's so easy to think that I just show up and do stuff for eight hours and go home. I don't. The stupid, tiny, seemingly inconsequential activities of my job are the lifeline for my patients. When done haphazardly, I not only degrade their quality of life, I degrade them as human beings. I degrade their souls.

Even though my patients are in the last part of their lives; even though their bodies are broken, ready to go to a final rest; even though the world has in some ways forgotten them, I am seeing the image of God in these individuals. I am seeing their souls.

We are not bodies, we are souls.

God has entrusted me the care of these souls. Though I know not where they will be going to after their bodies have died, I am entrusted the keeping of these souls.

It is a blessed burden.

I think my heart has grown, nay come alive. When not caring, when not serving, parts of my heart lie dormant and rot away. I genuinely love my patients. It's a difference that long-term care makes. Hospitals are in and out; not so at my home. I have relationship. I have, in some ways, community. I have memories. Memories with persons who struggle to keep their own memories.

The love I have for my patients overwhelms me. Like in church on Sunday. It was all I could do to just sit and write down ever single name of my patients. When I wrote their names it wasn't just to look at the letters associated with a face. Every stroke of my pen, scribing their names, was an act of love. I could not shake the intense love I feel for them.

I don't remember the songs we sang or the words from the elders. I remember loving my patients.

So I'm crazy you say? I don't care. I have experienced pure love from souls who are hours away from being with Jesus.  Tell me when was the last time you had that.

My favorite patient. Her body is almost useless. She cannot live the life she once lived. Hell, she can't even talk. But she can love. When I look into her eyes, when she smiles her half-smile, when she touches my face, when she kisses my hand, my soul sings. I would forsake all the lovers of my youth for the affection of this woman. This decrepit, forgotten, dying woman. I will be happy when she is Home, but until then I will pour my heart out to love her soul.

87% of blogs are simply narcissisms. I'm definitely part of the majority.

It's amazing to me that you can see so many people on a daily basis and get to the end of the week and are wiped out. Here it is Friday night, the third week of school, and I've declined several tempting offers to socialize. I'm quite content to sit here, surf the web for music downloads, upload some photos to facebook, and possibly watch a  movie. I sound like a fuddy-duddy, no? Twenty-one years old and I'm as tired as my parents.

Let me paint a picture of my life at present, and perhaps you'll understand.

School has been beneficial. I started out the semester with 13 credits. I am now down to 6, and am okay with this. Yes, it is getting a little tiring, this conversation I have on an almost-daily basis: "Are you a new student?" "No, this is actually my fourth year." "Oh, are you a senior?" "No, I'm a sophomore and have no idea when I'll be a junior, let alone graduate." "What's your major?" "History." "What do you want to do with that?" "Graduate. Then go to nursing school." It seems like I'll never graduate sometimes. So I'm a little untraditional... so what? But I'm liking the two classes I'm taking, both in my majors. I'm glad I'm not taking four classes like I had originally planned, because I know I would have died.

Work. Is work. I'm at 32 hours a week. A blessing, yes, but probably the source of my near-constant fatigue. I've found that there's no such thing as an easy job. And when you think you're job is easy, you're probably not doing what you should be doing. It really comes down to making the decision, to do what you're supposed to do or be lazy and do whatever the flip you can get away with. It's so easy to take the lazy route, but I'm going to press on and do my job right. I just had my six month anniversary at my company yesterday. I'm pretty happy about that. My time at the facility I worked at last year lasted six and a half, so assuming I don't royally screw anything up too bad in the next couple weeks, I should outlive that job.

So there you have it. Work and school. They drain me. Plus, I feel that after a summer nearly void of any socialization with people my own age, going to school everyday and seeing everyone there for the last three weeks has been surprisingly exhausting. Almost as if I've oversocialized. I shall now resign to listening to music, downloading music, and writing songs that have been bouncing around inside my cranium.

An emo blog post with a bootleg vid of an indie chick. So Portland.

I'm really tired. It's only 11:02 a.m. Oi....

This is what the next four months will be like: Work at night, go home, shower, go to school for several hours, go home, sleep, wake up, and start it all again. Since school is less than two weeks away now, I'm trying to stay up as late as I would on any given school day, to get myself used to it. Since today is a Tuesday, and I'll have class until 10 on Tuesdays, I am just about to go to bed. Boy am I tired! This will be difficult, but I know the LORD with sustain me through this.

In addition to tired, I'm also feeling melancholy today. Last week someone died. I'm handling this better than I thought I'd be, but I'm still feeling emotions I didn't know I had. On Sunday I found out that the boy I in some ways consider to be my first love is engaged. To the girl that he chose over me when we were seventeen. I'm happy for them, I really am. Reading the engagement story she posted on facebook was painful for me, but necessary. It really showed me that we weren't meant to be. Still, I think back fondly to that cheesy high school dance and how I thought he was all I needed. I've grown so much since then, I'm so much stronger, and it's hard to believe I ever felt that way. Praise God for the things He has done in my life to show me how my life was meant to be so much different than I envisioned it at seventeen!

So I now resign to be for the "night" feeling tired and melancholy, and I will pray the LORD will take my mind off these things and allow me to focus on school. Two weeks of summer left, but I'm trying to cram it with homework. I really don't want to fall behind this semester... and getting As would be great too.

I should tell you that you were my first love.

Relapse

I used to shop as a way of coping with stress. I hate to admit, I did it a little bit today. Mind you, I bought things I needed (mostly), but when all is bought and brought home, those stressors are still there. Buying the kitchen stuff and backpack and porch table did not change my circumstances.

And now, an explanation for my absence. (Not that I owe it to anyone... I have a life, yo!) My last post was March 14. On March 9 I had two job interviews, one of which landed me a job almost immediately. On March 17 I was officially hired at an assisted living facility in Southeast Portland, specifically working in the Alzheimer's unit as a caregiver. No, it's not a CNA position, but at that point I knew I had to take it; I had no other choice, and I'm not that dense to not see it was straight from God! I started out doing two swing shifts and one noc (that is, night, or graveyard) shift a week. On April 15 (less than one month!) I was offered to train as a med aide, which was a promotion of sorts. I trained as a med aide on the noc shift, and for a while only worked on med aide shift every once in a while, then once a week, then filling in for some vacancies, and at the beginning of July (well, when I got back from California) I was finally given a set full-time schedule. I work the same four nights a week, with weekends free to boot! Also, after being there three months I became eligible for health and dental insurance. My mom is so proud of me for that! Haha. It's almost $50 out of every paycheck... oi!

The LORD has greatly blessed me. His Providence is astonishing, never ceasing to amaze me. He has shown me this year that He will always give me exactly what I need, exactly when I need it, and will always enable me to do exactly what He wants me to do. I've been so stinkin' blessed with a wonderful church family, especially in my cell group, and other friends in Portland who lift me up and demonstrate to me that I am not alone.

Also, I moved. I was so blessed to live with some friends from Multnomah when I first moved to Portland. They really helped me out, giving me a place to live, charging me a very small amount for rent, and encouraging me as I worked on getting myself established in Portland. After a few months, some of my own feelings of my living situation coincided with an invitation from two friends from my cell group to move in with them. I knew almost right away that it was right move. It was actually only three houses down the street! I'm very, very, very, very, very happy in my new house. My housemates are great, and I know it's what's best for me. The LORD provides! God is good all the time! All the time, God is good!

I went to California in July, but that's a post for another day. I'm currently listening to Taylor Swift, my summer obsession. I'm going to take a nap before work tonight. Have a good day, o three readers, you!

Writing

I believe I'm a good writer--when inspiration strikes.  When the proper inspiration has appeared, I have written poems, essays, short stories, emails, and blog posts that really satisfy me.  Even in homework assignments, I've written some good stuff.

Maybe you don't agree.  Well, I really don't care.  My writing makes me happy.  And I know it makes God happy.  Beyond that I seek to please no one.

I pray I may keep that tenacity this fall.  I will be taking Multnomah's most difficult and stressful class, Advanced Writing with Professor Pothen.  I can't decide what intimidates me more: the on-average 10-15 page paper, or the professor.  The prompt of the paper is simply this: Write about that which you can't not write.  I've been thinking about this prompt for the last two months.  I don't want to force a topic, because I know it will show.  I will do my best writing if I indeed follow the prompt.  But what can I not not write about?

I'll examine what I have written about.  This surely should show me what matters enough to me to write down my thoughts.  Much of my blog has been devoted to updating the reader on the goings-on of my life.  La-dee-dah, not writing my Pothen paper of the bildungsroman I have been witness to.  (Well, I'm sure that whatever topic I choose will have something to do with some life experiences.)  Other posts have regarded my experiences with depression and a myriad of issues that accompany it.  I sometimes feel I could write ten papers on such issues!  I remember a particular blog I wrote in December of 2005, my senior year of high school.  I was expressing my disgruntlement with the commercialization of Christmas.  Then I got on the subject, somehow, of how Christians just pay lip service and really don't mean anything we profess with our lips, because our actions don't match.  It was actually a milestone in the development of my faith.  It was probably the first time I examined the Church and came to a conclusion that was not rosy.

There is an ever-dynamic list of possible topics.  They will most certainly be vomited onto this blog.