One Year

some thoughts about various things after almost exactly a year living in Franklin:

Work. It turns out that I really enjoy working in a tiny hospital. I love knowing that the radiology tech makes honey from the bees in his back yard and the details about a co-workers Germany trip with her Opa. I love that my co-worker brings me fish that he caught a few days before and that another co-workers makes pancakes for the whole hospital in the middle of the night.

It would be nice if we were busier ... which doesn't necessarily mean that I hope that people get sick ... it just means that I hope they come to our unit instead.

This week I am orientating and transitioning to the nursing supervisor role. I will work two shifts a week (still nights) as the supervisor and one in the ICU. This new role will technically makes me "nursing leadership" and the first person the other nurses will call when they need something ... anything - a prospect that both excites me (the problem-solving/nursing resource part) and makes me anxious (the "ummmm .... i think we have a patient in labor in the ED" part). However, I think that both the excitement and anxiety makes me eager to learn.

Life. Shortly after we moved to Franklin, Christopher and I took some sort of stress inventory and scored off the charts, which is what happens when you get married, leave your job and start another, move while your house is still on the market in a town 300 miles away and your husband starts doctoral school, all in about 8 months. It goes without saying that life now is easier and that the stress response has dwindled. We enjoy our apartment and have made some good friends here while still being able to see our family and friends in MN. I am thankful that we have worked to maintain and grow relationships over a distance and, at the same time, have been driving down roots with the people who will be by our side for the next several years.

It took some time to adjust the expectation that life in Milwaukee would be the same as life was in Rochester and, once I stopped looking for the same things, I became fulfilled with the new. We have lots of "couple friends" now and the habits and dynamics of "couple friends" are vastly different than our large, fairly fluid group of friends in Rochester. (that subject maybe deserves a whole other post.) We have settled on a church to attend after searching around for a church situation similar to the one we left. We have exchanged the numbered road system of Rochester for memorizing the streets that cross through Milwaukee and the suburbs. We have grown to love our multi-generational Bible study and fellowship after leaving Salt and Light.

And now we enter another school year with a better understanding of what to expect ... what we need to do to keep our relationship strong and fulfilling, how much work Christopher has to give to school work, what Loki needs from us to be happy and what it takes for us to grow and maintain relationships.

I have learned that when I am tempted to pack things up and run back to the familiar, it is best to go in search of the beauty that it right in front of me. And to give thanks for everything, new or familiar, challenging or comforting, difficult or routine.