Stepping Out
As I walked out of room 356, the tantrum Mr. Jensen had been throwing over the slow process of him getting a pillow slowly began to fade. Placating him proved to be an impossible task. It didn't matter that other patients needed their medications. Room 356 was going to be in a fit for the next hour or so.
Dreams of another career grew stronger and increasingly invaded my thoughts. Taking care of others used to give me such pleasure. Helping them to heal was something that brought me joy each day. Lately, getting up in the morning and walking into the hospital brought a depression crashing down upon me in waves. Besides the hospital politics and benefit fights, there was so much arguing and back-stabbing. Then there were those patients who demanded complete attention, even when others needed it more. All of those things made a career change something I craved. I once sought work as my escape, but now even that had become too much for me.
Abigail, fixated on my desire to return to school, stated her opinion about the matter rather explicitly to my face and through Mark. She simply couldn’t understand the burning desire within me. Last summer, the hospital had asked me to conduct a few mini-seminars. At first, my answer was a definite no. Getting up in front of people terrified me. Just the thought of speaking in front of a crowd caused my stomach to lurch. Eventually, pressure from my co-workers convinced me. Each of them had gone through my induction classes when they were first hired; they couldn't quit bragging about how much my teaching had helped them.
Surprisingly, teaching was fun. I loved it. Excitement coursed through me for the first time in years. When I was talking with my boss, she suggested that I look at teaching part-time. She really felt like it was a gift given to me. After thinking about it, the idea grew on me.
Investigating schools began to take up my free time. Naturally, the nursing field was where the search began, but the more I looked, the more depression settled over me. I could do it, just didn’t want to. Teaching called out to me, but in what area?
Passionate about reading, literature had always been one of my interests. Books from other time periods and cultures exhilarated me. I am probably the only person in the hospital whom Shakespeare's works excited. On a whim one day, I clicked on a link during a search that led me to literature degrees. My heart leapt for joy.
The amount of information on it floored me. Literature from America, England, the ancient worlds, China, Africa, and other places were all available for study. My heart had started to beat so fast I could hardly concentrate on the description of these studies. Literature! I could teach literature, but where? What could be done with such a degree?
Research was conducted every chance I got. Since my desired field of study had absolutely nothing to do with nursing, the hospital would not pay for the degree. No day classes were possible, and the college in town didn't have night classes. My dream was threatening to fly away until I overheard a young girl in the cafeteria talking about online classes. Never did the thought cross my mind that the classes I had always considered cheesy would be accepted in the real world. Research showed me differently.
Online learning, rapidly growing in every university around the world, was a convenient way to learn. Not only was it an accepted method of procuring a quality education, it was debatably harder than traditional schooling. Digging further, this method of learning called to me. Online classes could be the way for me to get my degree. Teaching could be done in a local school, the local college, or even online classes. There were so many opportunities.
Mark, receptive to the idea when we talked about it, encouraged me. Whether he realized it or not, his encouragement made all the difference. I stayed on cloud nine until its casual mention to Abigail ruined it all. Her chastising comments dragged me down into the deepest of valleys.
Since that slip up two months ago, Abigail had not let up. An irritatingly persistent woman, she took every opportunity to let me know how ridiculous she thought the idea as. Once she even commented that I wasn't capable of working and going to school at the same time. She actually had me convinced, and I stopped looking at going back to school for several weeks.
After George's encouragement, the search resumed with more vigor. One school really captured my attention. Most of the core curriculum could easily be exempt; most of those classes had been taken while getting my nursing degree. That would leave the literature classes as my main focus, which would make it fun for me, not to mention that it was affordable and flexible. That was the school for me.
During lunch, as I went over the class plan with George, my excitement only grew. It was such fun talking about which classes I wanted to take and when to take them. Tonight would be the discussion with Mark about when I could apply and start this new chapter of my life.
As usual, the day was stressful. The boys were out again, so dinner was picked up on my way home. I was beginning to wonder if they would ever be seen around the house again. Mark was supposed to be home, though. Just to be safe, I chose to get some chicken to grill with a few simple sides.
Mark did show up on time. Until school was mentioned, dinner had been quite enjoyable. For the first time, he started to question the whole idea of me going back to school.
“Leigh, are you sure now is the right time to start this? After all, you just started looking into it. Maybe you need to take some time, consider your options a bit further. Think about it some more.”
“Mark, I've been looking for five months now. I know this is what I want to do. I thought you were behind me on this.” Dismayed by his reaction, I wondered if his mother's influence had been the reason for this sudden change of heart.
“Well, Leigh, Mom does make a good argument. You do have a career. Are you sure you want to go through more schooling just to change jobs so you can grow to hate another career?
My heart openly bleeding, I stared at him. My eyes lowered as I took a deep breath. I began gathering dishes and cleaning up to hide the tears that threatened to flow. For a few extra seconds, Mark looked at me before getting up and heading into the living room to watch the sports channel.
Doors slammed shut in the kitchen and dishes were noisily thrust on the counters as I worked out my frustration. Every single time my hopes rose to the surface, the ones who should support me always seemed to shatter my dreams. Even though my heart continued to bleed, I refused to cry openly.
While folding clothes later that evening, the phone rang. My heart plummeted when I saw my mother's number on the caller ID. She never called unless there was some kind of tragedy. Bracing myself for the worst, I picked up the phone.
“Leigh, you haven’t called me in several weeks.” Mom began the conversation by admonishing me in the typical fashion. “Are you mad at me?”
“Uh, Mom, I talked to you last week.” I dropped the shirt I was folding and sat on the bed.
“No, you didn’t. I've not spoken to you since Easter which was over a month ago.”
Unless she just had it out for me, my mom was starting to show signs of dementia. Because of her mental failure, every phone call ended up as some sort of argument about how she never got enough phone calls from me or saw enough of me or whatever other complaint crossed her mind.
After a few minutes, I was able to divert the conversation to safer waters so that I was out of the line of fire. The only problem with that was the longer the conversation continued, the more my guard was lowered, raising the risk that something I said would start another conflict. This time it was the subject of school.
Mom started with my brother’s son. “Jason has finally decided to go to college. He really gave your brother a scare in deciding to work at the gas station for the rest of his life. He has decided to go to the local community college until he knows what he wants to do with his life. It is just a matter of him being able to pay for it.”
Before my brain could kick in and tell my mouth to stay shut, the words came out. “I understand. In fact, I just finished my own research and should be going back to school in the next month or two.” Silence on the other end greeted me, then I began hitting myself on the forehead.
“Going back to school? For what? To get that promotion?” Hope appeared in Lydia’s voice.
A deep breath was taken to calm my now jittery nerves before I responded. “Actually, I am going back to get my literature degree. I want to teach.”
More silence. “Why?” was all Lydia said.
“Because I want to.” I sat there and waited. Nothing from seven hundred miles away came across the lines.
“I don’t understand why when you have a perfectly good job. You don’t need to take on anything else in your life. Why can’t you just be satisfied with what you have?” Lydia was getting ready to launch on one of her famous tirades.
I couldn’t take anymore, nor did I need this. Not today. “Mom, I really have to go. There is a pie in the oven, and I hear the buzzer going off.” Lydia had never been to their new house so she didn’t know whether the phones were on cords or not. This was a secret I chose to keep to myself.
After hanging up, I sat on the bed staring at the wall in front of me. Shutting my mind down, I turned around and began putting clothes up on shelves. When all was ready, I grabbed a light sweater and called out to Mark that I was going to take a short walk around the block. A faint, mumbled acknowledgement was heard before closing the door behind myself.