I have to say, I am loving this working two jobs thing. Not only is it nice to have a paycheck every week, but I feel like my brain is totally focused on working and I have been surpised at myself lately because I’m starting to trust myself more and more with my capabilites as a nurse in the PICU. I’m not afraid to walk into work and be faced with an assignment I don’t think I can handle because, well, I guess it’s setting in that I really might end up being really good at this.

When I first started and a patient would get to the point when they needed to be intubated, I always got nervous and shaky and doubted what I knew and I watched everyone else around me doing it like it was second nature and at times joking around, but this past week my patient needed intubated and I was finally able to be involved in an intubation and feel comfortable and have everything ready before the doctors asked for it. A woman that has worked there for 30 years walked out with me and told me that I did very well. That made me feel better than you can possibly imagine.

Home care is a different beast altogether. It’s not the same high paced environment as the PICU, but I also get to know the kids I’m working with better and its more like I’m there so that the parents get a break. I’m still really busy because it’s all paper charting and documentation and I have to clean everything and switch out all the equipment, but it’s a much different kind of environment. And I never really thought about what happened when the kids went home from the hospital. Let me just say, God bless the parents of ventilator dependant, trached, G-tubed kids with central lines and the whole mess because it is a lot of work to just do the day to day things. Just getting them out of bed to use the bathroom is a process, and I can’t even imagine doing something as simple as going to the grocery store. I’m not certain because I only have ever dealt with a tunneled central line in a hospital setting, but I don’t know that these kids can go swimming or how it would be to take a child with a ventilator to the beach or any other family vacation. Seriously, God bless these kids and parents. I’m always amazed at work by them, but seeing how they live at home, wow… The amount of strength and faith families of kids with real illnesses that don’t go away is mind blowing and inspiring, and it kind of does something I can’t explain to my spirit. And some of the kids are so happy. Kids in general amaze me, but adding an illness on top of that and watching how they still maintain their innocence and still are kids who just want to play and learn despite everything they’re dealing with… it just blows my mind.

I just feel like I’m using my time to do something good, and I’m getting paid for it. So, all in all, it’s making me pretty happy.

The depressed tone of that last post mostly had to do with the fact that when I am not at work for many days in a row, I turn into a depressed, self-obsessed, overanalyzing functioning alocoholic.

Before last night, I had not been to work in 8 days. I was scheduled Wednesday and Thursday of last week and had to call off as I did something weird and undescribable to my back. I thought I pulled a muscle, but it was timed perfectly with other womanly things going on - starting at the same time, peaking at the same time, ending at the same time - that I was convinced I was having either a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, or that my bowel had exploded.

I popped a muscle relaxer and mostly everything was ok from there on out. I did miss two days of work and discovered what it will be like when osteoperosis sets in and I can no longer stand erect. I hope I shrink a lot before then, I think when I get old I’m going to resemble Bea Arthur.

Anyway, my financial situation is a bit shitty since they’ve been cutting overtime for the past 3 weeks because the census is so low - a good thing I guess because it is trauma season so it ultimately means that little kids aren’t getting hurt, but a bad thing when I’m trying to redecorate. Thank god that the majority of this stretch of time off occured over the 4th of July weekend, which means picnics and free hot dogs and beer.

I’m still losing weight so I haven’t had a 100% all beef hotdog in sometime. But, damn, are they delicious.

The free beer was good, too, and I attended two wonderful picnics and was treated to multiple beers out by my good friends and my new homies at work.

Sadly, as happy as my nights begin, at a certain point I realized that I am minutes away from crying and pretty much jump up and leave without warning. It’s not so much the alcohol as much as it is realizing that when I don’t have to go to work, I don’t know what to do with myself. That and two of my closest friends are following my old roommate and getting the hell out of Pittsburgh - while Kat went all the way to California, Shane is heading to Charleston and Mary to Annapolis - I am still going to attempt to see all of them on my next vacation in October. But, still, I found myself wishing I could get out of my contract and just bail.

That’s not an option, now or anytime soon, unless some wealthy European offers to sweep me off my feet and give me the life I never knew I always wanted, but what are the chances that will happen twice? No, if there’s one thing I learned in the past 10 years, it’s that you have to make your own happiness, that if you sit around wishing for things to change they never will. So that’s what I’ve decided to do.

I have decided to act like I just moved to Pittsburgh. Or maybe back to Pittsburgh is the right way to put it. I’m making a real effort to go to new places, to do different things, and to expand myself beyond my circle of 4 close friends. I’m finding that I really enjoy some of the people I work with and that making friends isn’t the chore I once thought it was. I’ve also connected with some old, old friends lately, and that’s nice, too. It’s nice to find an old friend and feel like you can pick it up right where you left off, none of that awkward “Where the hell have you been, why have you forsaken me?” conversation bullshit, but just the realization that life takes people in different directions, but sometimes it brings people back together.

I also am applying for an on-line BSN program and a second job. These are two things I am hoping to get accomplished on my vacation next week, that and painting my living room.

So, all in all, if I keep on top of myself, I’m ok. When I get depressed, it tends to keep sprialing out of control until I no longer see the light at the end of the tunnel anymore, but I always kick my ass back into gear.

“We’ll make it, Jen, we’ll all get there. Be happy, I love you,” Jt said to me on the other side of the bar on Monday as he gave me a hug and an inappropriate kiss. Simple words, but something I think I forget sometimes. I really do have a lot of good people in my life, and they don’t care about money or how much I weigh or O or any of it.

That’s what I need to remember. To keep me going. To get to the light at the end of the tunnel, and to look back and one day know why things happened the way they did.

I”m sure you were all waiting for this one, but I figured I’d update on the whole O situation.

Basically, I’m realizing that all the reasons for us not being together - namely the ocean between us, both of us having careers that we are unable and unwilling to give up, and the idea that I was considering waiting for him for a year until he would be able to move to Pittsburgh, which was before it turned into we wouldn’t know how long since his company lost a few employees and gained two new customers in Asia and a design flaw was unleashed - are very real. My stupid romantic idea that love will conquer all… well, it’s a nice thought, but I’m not sure I believe that anymore and, as the days go by and I realize that life does go on without the promises of everything I was being offered, I realize that we made a good decision to stick with what we each have for the time being. He having his adventurous, lonely life on the road constantly working. Me having my life in Pittsburgh, most specifically my family and the job that I love.

I didn’t mention this before, in part because I was considering doing it and who knows what will happen between now and when my contact with UPMC is up, but I was invited to leave my life behind and just go. Several times over the past few months, actually, but most seriously during his last trip to Pittsburgh when we discussed that the best thing to do would be for me to meet him in England right after my brother’s wedding. True, it was probably one of those things that people say that they really don’t mean because even as we were looking on the internet to see how quickly I could get a passport, I knew in my heart that it was all in vain. That, yes, I do love him but that I would never be able to leave my family forever for a man who wouldn’t be willing to give me children or stability but would instead ask me to fly around the world with him.

Although it’s been awhile since I’ve gone to church, I still very much believe in Jesus and I have prayed a lot about all this, trying to get a sense of peace and a sign that what I am doing is the right thing. There’s a romantic in me somewhere telling me to drop everything and go, but there’s also a smarter, rational woman who knows that everything happens for a reason and that he showed up in my life when he did because that was the way it was supposed to happen. That he left like he did because that was the way it was supposed to happen.

I didn’t think I’d be capable of having real feelings for someone that went beyond the bar scene, beyond simply being a person to distract me from my life when I felt overwhelmed, but I realized that feelings will grow when they are most unlikely to and despite everything working against them. Maybe I was just supposed to learn how to see the world through rose colored glasses again.

I still hear from him every day. He’s in Brazil, he had beef stroganoff for dinner, got attacked by ants, and he’s listening to NPR before he goes to sleep every night. We’re working out a way to maintain a friendship for now, and it so far seems to be working. I’m not waiting, I’m not holding my breath, and if someone comes along who makes O look like a tit, well, I will take him in with open arms. There’s actually a new rather odd option that’s recently made itself known to me, so I’ll have to see how that plays out, but I am excited to be moving on to see what the next spin has in store for me.

I’m happy, I’m in a good place. The past month and my birthday night out showed me that I really do have everything I need to get through day to day, and that I’ll make it out of all of this in one piece.

But I’m working on getting a passport. Just in case.

I can’t defend my decision to spend most of the weekend with O, but I don’t regret it and I’d do it again.

There were a lot of things that were said. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of crying and I dare say some sobbing - from both sides.

No one knows what is happening and has happened between me and O except for me and O, and I’m not going to get into details about any decisions or conclusions we came to and the beautiful things that were said. But suffice it to say it’s not over. And it’s in a much more honest and realistic place now.

There’s love here. He found it.

And I can’t regret that. I won’t.

     I don’t know how much I got into detail about the Irishman I met this summer, but the short of it is I met him on a Friday, we spent the whole weekend together, and he went back to Ireland the following Tuesday morning. He was amazingly cool, a gentlemen, and thanked me with every hug hello for the previous night. He’s 24, the baby in a family of 6 kids, and told me that I was the person who took care of him while he was here. The amazing part is that we still text weekly and spoke on the phone two weeks ago. Yes, my phone bill was $100 extra due to one 60 minute conversation, but it was well worth it because the Irishman is a trip, he’s planning on coming back in June, and there wasn’t one moment of awkward silence in the entire conversation.

     This Friday, I found myself alone at Jack’s for an hour because the friend I met early had to catch the bus, and the one I was supposed to meet later was running behind. The bartender introduced me to an out of towner who had also found himself alone at the bar. This is how I began my brief love affair with England, and cheated on Ireland at the same time.

     The Englishman got me not only with his accent, but also with his brains because we were talking literature within twenty minutes. He was in town on business and had traveled around the world, resulting in some awesome stories. He commented that our president is a “wanka”, that the deep south scared him more than the strict Islamic cities in the Middle East, and that people from China are the loudest group of people that he’s met thus far.

     When the bar closed Friday night, I suggested we go to Tom’s Diner because, well, I am still on the diet but every month I get a hankering for gyro fries and I wasn’t ready to stop talking to the Englishman. It was freezing outside and I didn’t want to walk all the way to Tom’s, so in typical American fashion, I invited myself back to his hotel room.

     I know, I know. And you can believe me if you want to, but nothing happened. We talked alot and kissed alot, but there is no need for me to worry that there’s a little Englishman growing in my uterus or that I picked up some UK cooties. The Englishman, like the Irishman, was a complete and total gentleman and, although he tried, he didn’t push and I remained as chaste as I was when I walked into the hotel.

     I quickly called him out on the fact that he probably has American girls in every city he’s been to, but he assured me that there aren’t that many women in very very rural Iowa and that in Alabama they’ll shoot you if you look at one of theirs, so that combined with his 70 plus hour a week work schedule, he really hadn’t had time to think about women. “I mean, I do get my fair share of attention, but I guess that’s just the accent. Plus I like a girl I can talk to, not one that just asks me to say “water” and “bottle” and tell me how cute I sound.”

     We ended up staying in bed from the time we got in when the bar closed until 5 pm the next day. When we woke up around 11, he rolled over and said “I was wondering if I could take you out for a meal this evening”. He suggested this fancy French place, but I guess he could tell from the look on my face that I wasn’t into it, so we decided to get pizza instead. When we talked about what kind of pizza we liked, I told him that I hadn’t eaten real pizza in months but that I loved thin, greasy pizza with just pepperoni. “That’s my favorite, too… My God, you are officially perfect. It’s driving me mad.” I dragged my ass out of bed, went home, showered, and met him at 7 pm for dinner, which turned into a few beers at 9 pm, which turned into us back at his hotel by 11 pm.

     The difference between this UK experience and my last one was that the Englishman was interested in really talking, seriously getting to know me conversation, whereas the Irishman was more outgoing, friendly, and didn’t mince words (”Jenny, I’m mad to kiss you” will probably remain my favorite pick up line until the day I die… imagine it with a thick Irish accent…). I know it’s odd that I feel I need to choose a country, and there’s a little piece of me who wants to meet a Scotsman and a guy from Wales so I can say I’ve kissed someone from each country in the United Kingdom. But I digress…

     I had Thanksgiving plans with my family on Sunday so I had to be out of bed by noon and, let me tell you, tearing myself away from there, knowing that I’ll probably never see him again was the hardest thing I have had to do to my heart in quite awhile.

     When he woke up, he said “I had a dream, you were in it.”

     “What were we doing?”

     He paused a second, then continued. “We were walking… just walking. In France. And it was beautiful.”

     “That’s it? We were walking?”

     He laughed. “Well, I supposed I can make something up that would be more interesting, but the walking was good enough for me.”

      He told me he wanted me to stay in bed, and I told him I had to go or my mother would shoot me. I told him I wanted him to stay in Pittsburgh, and he told me that 5 years ago that was just the kind of thing he would do. Then he asked me to go to Mexico with him. I told him I couldn’t because I had to work this week. He said some really nice things that I want to believe, and I will believe because, well, it makes for a better story and it helps me believe that not all men are shit if it’s true. And he really has no way of proving himself to be anything other than what he pretended because I’ll never see him again.

     As I was laying there at 11:35 am Sunday morning, knowing I had to be out of there at noon, I was struggling to think of something to say that wouldn’t come off too crazy, but that would let him know that this weekend was something I would never, ever forget. I settled on this: I just wanted to tell you that I won’t forget you… I’m really glad I met you and this weekend meant a lot to me.

     He smiled and kissed me, and replied “I don’t know how I’m going to sleep from now on without you next to me. And I know you think that I do this in every city, but I don’t… I haven’t thought about women since I took this job because there’s just no time and I’m never around long enough, but you… You, I’ll be thinking about when I finally get back home.”

     We exchanged emails and he kissed me good-bye one last time, told me not to frown and that next time I was going to that French restaurant with him. I managed not to cry when I left or for the rest of the day yesterday, but I’m crying now. I’m not sure why, really, it might as well have been a dream.

     But maybe that’s it. Maybe, in a way, it kind of was a dream come true, the princely-polite gentleman with the accent telling you all the things you’ve been dying to hear and saying them in a way that makes you believe it instead of merely wanting to believe it. Being able to connect with someone in a way that, even though you spent hours upon hours in bed, the majority of the time really was spent talking about beliefs and family and trying to find out what makes each other tick. Or maybe it was the way that he looked at me, or rather couldn’t stop looking at me, that made me just want to be that to someone, even if it only lasted nearly 48 hours. Who knows? If anything, it shows me that whatever problem I thought I had that was repelling men is all in my head… because somewhere, someone is thinking about me.

     And that has to be enough.