Irony number two: I have back issues. I have had back issues my entire life. In fact, I have a slight curvature in my spine. In fact, Dude has a pretty significant curvature to his spine.
And here I am, working for spine doctors.
How ironic.
I wonder if I did that on a sub-conscious level. I wouldn’t doubt it. My sub-conscious is sneaky like that.
I’ve been working out. A lot. Okay. Maybe not a lot. I work out every other night because I wash my hair every other day and I can’t stand the thought of not only having dirty hair on day two, but having dirty SWEATY hair on day two.
So I work out every other night.
I am doing EA Sports on the Wii. And then walking 45 minutes or three miles, whichever comes first.
And though my jiggles are jiggling just a little less, my back is hurting more and more.
I simply can’t win.
My back rarely hurts when I’ve got a little weight on me, but the moment I start losing that “buffer”, ouch.
But that is yet another thing I will endure because I simply refuse to buy bigger clothes.
It’s. Just. Not. Going. To. Happen.
People get into trouble when they buy bigger clothes. I will not be one of those people.
Sharing this bit of working out news is not the least bit exciting. Why? Because I go through spurts. I have gone through spurts my entire life. I get excited about something, I participate to death and then it sort of burst into a spontaneous ball of pretty spark and … nothing. The enthusiasm is gone. My drive is gone. I’m no longer excited about it.
Until the next spurt happens, and here we go again …
I confess. One of the biggest reasons I’ve been getting back on the exercise wagon is because of one gal at work. She began one of those crazy two-week diets at the beginning of the year where she wouldn’t eat any carbs, yadda-yadda-yadda for two weeks. Then she started introducing these foods back into her diet, and began re-training her body to eat healthy. Then she began to exercise and now? Four months later? She’s looking downright skinny.
I could do that. I too have the willpower to stick to something like that, but I simply choose not to. I prefer, instead, to just sort of bargain with myself all day.
“Okay look. If you want to eat this brownie now, fine. But you can not eat anything else fattening for the rest of the day.”
“It’s 8:00 o’clock at night – it’s too late to eat. You’re just going to have to ignore the hunger pangs. Go to bed. You can’t be hungry if you’re sleeping.”
Things like that. And yes. It works for me. In essence, I guilt myself into doing the right thing. But of course, just cutting back on eating isn’t enough, I have to start exercising, too. Because no matter what anyone tells you, you HAVE to exercise AND watch your food intake if you truly want to lose weight.
Period. End of story.
So yeah. I’m feeling a teensy bit jealous of the gal at work who’s losing all of her weight. I also admire the hell out of her. And when you wear scrubs all day every day? It’s so easy to pack on the pounds because there is no external restriction to remind you to scale back a bit.
I work with a lot of obese women. And if you ever wonder why there are so many obese people in health care I blame stress and scrubs. It’s an uphill battle. But the gals that I work most closely with? Are pretty good about watching their weight and though I’m not really one to allow other people to affect my life/attitude, it happens. And I’m thankful for their diligence.
This is a bit off topic, but the other day, I was talking with my “buddy” (we have buddies that cover our nurses’ flags and voicemails whenever we’re out of the office – which reminds me, my buddy is going on vacation for a week next month and OMG, I’m going to be super busy trying to do my work AND her work while she’s gone), and we were talking about … okay fine, we were gossiping, (though I HONESTLY try to stay out of the gossiping arena because that will get a person into trouble in no time flat), and I said, “Want to know a secret?”
And to my utter astonishment, she began crying.
In addition to feeling extremely uncomfortable, I was flabbergasted. What the … ??
She thought I was going to tell her I was quitting.
Bless her heart. The thought of my leaving truly freaked her out. I’m not quite sure how to take this. I mean, I’m glad she likes me. I’m glad she enjoys working with me (because let’s face it, I’m pretty awesome *snort*), but wow. Her reaction shocked me. And it made me really sad. Because though she has told me stories of how awful it was for her until I came on the scene, I guess I didn’t realize just HOW awful it was for her until I came on the scene.
The other two gals in my area? Are not bad people. I like them both. Sure. They both have their quirks, I have quirks, we all have quirks. And I deal with those quirks because people are different and that’s life. Getting upset over things you can’t control is a total waste of energy and I refuse to do that.
But wow. I knew there was tension between the other two girls and my “buddy.” But I guess I really didn’t know how serious that tension was until I saw her reaction to my “Wanna know a secret” statement.
Now I sort of feel like I’m stuck in this job. Granted, I have no intention of going anywhere any time soon because even though I don’t get paid squat, I truly enjoy this job. It challenges me and I really dig the crazy pace and all of the multi-tasking. But this whole flu shot thing every flu season fiasco? Is really not something I want to put myself, or the people I work with, through every year. I plan on waiting it out a few years to see how often these “flu epidemics” (*snort*) break out and go from there.
But if I ever choose to leave healthcare and pursue something else, I now have the added guilt of leaving this poor woman who has clearly attached herself to me.
And though I’m flattered she likes me, and enjoys working with me, I sort of resent the fact that now I will feel guilty for leaving, if it ever comes to that.
Does that makes sense? *sigh*
People are starting to share office gossip with me. I really wish they wouldn’t. I really don’t want to get sucked into office politics. I just want to go to work, do my job, have a few laughs and then go home. But I see what’s coming … invitations to hang out after work. And though, again, I really, truly like these gals I work with, I just don’t want to go down the hang out after work road. Because then you just add another element of stress to your working life, especially if you get upset with one another or you start feeling like you owe someone something because you’re “friends.”
I know that makes me sound stand-offish and snobbish. And to some extent, you’d be right. But I’m just trying to be realistic and I’m desperately trying to keep my personal life and my work life two separate entities.
I’m not sure how much longer I can make the distinction.
And guys, get this, on the 19th of this month? I will have been at this job for six months.
SIX MONTHS, PEOPLE.
Wow.
Write From Karen 