Indian American Love Child

It is only fitting I talk about L-O-V-E around Valentine's Day. More specifically, lost love. It's been a tough couple of months for me as I've come to the sad realization that I no longer love what I do for a living. To some people, this is no big deal, as they might have never even come close to enjoying what they did, yet alone, loving it. But I LOVED nursing. For many years, no matter what shift I worked, how sick my patients or how many patients, how staffed or understaffed- I loved my profession. Of course there were bad days, but despite even the worst days, I loved being able to guide my patient through sickness to health, to be a pillar of support and a comfort at their most vulnerable time, and to use my skills and critical thinking to make sure all my patients were safe and that their needs were met. I never thought I would tire of nursing. I very much believed I could be a career nurse, retiring after 30 + years of patient care- satisfied and happy. Sadly, ...

I just got back from Capital Hill last week, where I got to attend this amazing program called NIWI or Nurse In Washington Internship. The primary focus of the internship was to help nurses better understand the legislative process, and how nurses can use this process to invoke policy change on both a state and national level. It was a fascinating program from which I learned a great deal. But I think what I enjoyed the most, was meeting so many amazing nurses from all around the country. Nurses who had enough initials behind their name to form a small sentence. Nurses on the boards of some huge nursing organizations, and passionately represented their respective specialties. Nurses who had ventured outside the realm of traditional nursing and gone into politics, business, law, etc. It was the most professionally inspiring experience I have had in a long time! I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it, and I left the program having a clearer idea of what I needed to do to achieve my fut...