I was going to say, just refer to what I wrote yesterday, as it also involved the word risk, but then I thought some more about it and realized okay, maybe I have taken more than one risk in my life.
The risks I have taken are not very exciting though, they pale in comparison to say, the guy who blogged that he had quit his job to sail some great distance. I quit my job to start another job. That was my big risky move. Honestly at the time it just felt like the right move, the path I needed to take. Now a few months later when I tell people I left a job where I had twenty three years worth of seniority and vacation entitlement (which is everything when you’re a nurse) to take a temporary position, not even permanent, to teach at our local college, they say holy moly that took some balls.
But I knew I was finished with the career of nursing. Been done for so long. And I don’t know about everybody else but when I am done with anything, I’m done. Just ask my ex-husband. People say oh yeah like Covid was really hard on everyone and especially people in healthcare, yeah I guess I don’t blame you for wanting out of nursing. But it’s not even that. I don’t think Covid was the nail on the coffin.
To begin with, if you’ve read any of my other posts you’ll know that nursing was not what I really wanted to do, it was writing. But as a foolish twenty one year old, in a snap decision I decided to go the route of nursing (my Mom is a nurse), and the years just rolled by like tumbleweeds blowing in the hot dry wind.
About two years ago I started looking at my nursing career from a different perspective and realized there is more to life and because I began nursing at such a young age, I would be able to retire pretty young and then what. I am not the kind of person who relishes the thought of retiring and sitting around. Working gives me a purpose, I need a purpose or I feel like that tumbleweed. So I decided that possibly, if I got out of nursing sooner rather than later, I could begin a second career. How many people stay in one career their whole lives anyway? I think I’ve read the average is three or four, people over a lifetime will have three or four different careers.
I thought about getting more into writing, but because of where I live and the resources we have, it’s not going to be something that can financially support me. So I will continue to do it just for fun. I also applied to manage a homeless shelter but that didn’t pan out. And then months later, the job I have now, teaching Health Care Aide students, jumped out at me and I knew that was what I wanted. It’s a six month term, which will end in July and I still don’t know what’s in store for me afterwards.
The powers that be say that they are certain there will be funding provided to make this position permanent, but I’m still waiting for that announcement. Do I care that possibly in July I will be unemployed and I’ve given up all my seniority and vacation entitlement at the hospital and if I had to go back there and work I’d be working up from the bottom again? Absolutely not. I had to take this chance. I just had to. And I love the job. I love the atmosphere of the college. I love how friendly my coworkers are. Nobody is sick or dying. And everyone else seems to love their jobs. I am very fond of my students. And teaching is a fun job. The material that I teach is in my wheelhouse and so even though I’ve never taught before, because of my years of nursing, it all makes sense and I feel confident most days when I’m teaching in front of the class.
So even if this risk ends with me job searching again in July, I feel it was 110% worth it and I would do it all over again. Knowing is better than not knowing.
bloom.planted.north 
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