I sat down tonight and quickly scanned the job postings. A few positions for office nurses. I have yet to check the listings for two of the larger hospital providers here in town. For having such an ill-defined concept of what it is that I'm looking for in the way of a job, my heart seems to have its own ideas of what it is that I need.
I don't need to be "needed," but I do need to make a difference. Somewhere, somehow, in some way what I do needs to make a difference to someone. A positive difference. As I have stated before, it is my love for the people that I serve that has kept me from actively seeking something else to do until now. I don't want to leave. I love what it is that I do.
It really wasn't until I was talking with one of the other nurses this afternoon that I saw the search for significance from an entirely different perspective.
She's one of the African nurses. Very funny, very personable. Quite non-stereotypical in so many ways. She's probably as much a juxtaposition as is KarmaDogma. She doesn't cook; her husband does the cooking. She is quite content to let him do the cooking as he enjoys it. She works and her money is pretty much her own with her favorite ways to spend it being to have her hair done and on her jeans obsession. She likes country music. And, she's Muslim. Now, if that set of data doesn't make for a juxtaposition somewhere... LOL
It seems that she is always coming up with something that surprises me about her, and the reciprocal is also true it would seem as well. I wished that we worked more shifts together as she's a great coworker, always willing to jump in and lend a hand when needed, and just a lot of fun to be around.
When she works with Ken and me on Sunday, the three of us always have lunch together. It's a nice change from the usual hectic routine. When we sat down for lunch today, Ken switched off the CD of reggae that he had been playing, thinking that I didn't like reggae. (Me, who authored "The Obligatory Pseudo-Reggae Song" when it seemed that everyone in the music industry felt the need to include a reggae song on their album? Me? Not like reggae?) Her reply to my response that I liked reggae, "Oh, I forgot. Jo's international," she giggled. We listened and chatted.
I took some of my wings out to the apartment for my autistic guy who, upon seeing me first thing, had grabbed my hand and told me "Kentucky Fried Chicken." I had agreed that it sounded good, but there was no KFC today. His response was to try and drag me out the back door of the apartment to the parking lot in order to go and get some KFC. So, I figured I'd share some of my wings and macaroni salad with him for lunch.
When I returned, Ken was off being busy again. He's the busiest guy I know. I had some time, so she and I began to talk. She asked if I had heard back from the workers comp provider about a job. I confessed that I had never gotten around to applying, but that I was going to go home and do a job search in earnest as the time had come to go.
I told her I was dating someone from work. She was happy for me. After breaking off my engagement, and then the total snafu with Seth... Knowing the grapevine well, she agreed we were right in keeping it away from work. I made the point that people will freely speculate and embellish, so it just proves ugly and lethal to any type of attempt at having a relationship. I told her I would rather have a relationship with him than have my job. And, being that the grapevine has had him sleeping with/trying to sleep with every woman at work already, I just wasn't willing to come close to feeding into it at all.
We talked about how it is that you can be around someone for a year, and then just "suddenly" notice what they're about. I told her that he just amazes me at the depth of soul, quietness of spirit, the intellect and understanding that he has, and why was it that I had never caught on to this before now. (OK, I am blonde, you know. I tend to be just a bit slow on the uptake at times.) I told her that we had talked about meeting my family. She said that means he's serious. I told her that I wasn't sure what it meant entirely, especially being that he's African....
She was floored by that revelation. That this guy that I'm telling her about who is so sweet to my heart and witty and intelligent was African. She was genuinely surprised by the fact that I would be dating an African.
"You're so open-minded in the good ways."
That was the sentence with which she opened the next part of the conversation. We went on to talk about how she feels that many of the Americans perceive the Africans as being stupid and inferior. She related an account of attending one of our staff meetings where one of the employees went off on some tangent about how they were tired of all the Mexicans and Africans coming over here and taking away jobs. I was appalled. It doesn't really surprise me that something like that would happen. It's like I tell people when they find out what it is that I do, "My patients are great. It's my staff that's fucking retarded." That would be a prime example of exactly what it is that I mean when I make that statement.
We went on to talk about some of the other perceptions, misconceptions, educational backgrounds, cultural stuff... She asked if I was going to start fixing African food for him. I told her I'd have to come over and take cooking lessons from her husband for that. We rolled.
In the end, she agreed that I was right in my decision that it was time to look for a job elsewhere if having the opportunity for a relationship with this man was that important to me.
In the search for significance...
The conversation that she and I shared today was significant, in many ways and for both of us.
Significance isn't only to be found in what you do as a job. Significance is to be found in what you do in life in general. Actions and attitudes and relationships and conversations all contribute to significance.
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