I’m making mistakes at work.

On my days off, I’m staying in bed until noon.

I just don’t know if I can stay in the profession.

Ya’ll, we’ve had a year. No, scratch that—18 months? Two years? With COVID-19 refusing to stay put in our rearview mirrors, time has entered a delusional plane where it’s almost impossible to remember our old lives—both professionally and personally—let alone what day it is. As nurses, we have all been forever changed by the Pandemic.

Now another holiday season descends upon us. In so many ways we are in a better spot—vaccines are here and the eleventy-th wave of virus is trending down in most communities. Yet, we know things now. Things that we can’t un-know. These changes in perception continue to chip away at our edges; both how we see ourselves as nurses and where nursing is headed continue to shape shift. 

We’ve seen our communities divided. We’ve seen people take to the picket lines over every conceivable aspect of this virus, and its offshoots. Vaccine mandates, masks, lockdowns, what constitutes a public health expert status, sane medical treatments…and that doesn’t even cover the social justice movements that overlapped along the way. What once lay dormant and festering in our communities has been lanced and is now oozing all over The. Damn. Place. 

What’s true is that crises serve as accelerators. We all watched in horror as a global health pandemic landed in our laps—we all heard the ice crack around us. Many of us jumped at the call to action. Many more of us stood agape, overwhelmed at where to start to lend a hand. 

Now, so many months in, nurses are sick and tired of being responsible for societal wound care. 

We’re ready for a shift change. However you plan to spend your Thanksgiving, it’s nearly impossible to sneak past it without a little introspection. And it’s not all gloom and doom. ’Tragic optimism,’ a term first used 100 years ago by Dr. Vicktor Frankl, describes what many of us are experiencing now—the feeling of wrangling hope from pain. 

As a nurse, this idea speaks to me greatly—and the nurses I have interacted with in the past several months also, overwhelmingly, feel a calling to alchemize their discomfort into something…useful? At the very least, meaningful.

What I know down to my core about the bravery of nurses is that we are willing to expose our pain in order to release it. And that we can do this in such a way that it offers a hand for others  to do the same. My hope is that we turn towards one another going forward—we needn’t forge this path alone. Connection is curative. Being with the ones who can love each of us through what we’ve endured will be key to healing our profession as a whole. 

So. Let’s asses. 

We may have had this 18-month long COVID-decade stomp all over our caring hearts, but you know what? They’re still beating. And for this one nurse, I can attest that there is much to be grateful for.

Here are the things I am tragically optimistic about:

1. Job security. In a word: Ivermectin. Okay?! I needn’t say more, but can we all just agree that the public NEEDS us? Hopefully we’re gaining on the prevention aspect of dismantling health disinformation more so than on the Emergency Treatment side, but boy-oh-boy, do we need strong voices showing up for science more than ever. I’m thankful that this is always going to be a perfect job for nurses.

2. Self-care. Out with the ruse of toxic positivity and in with getting our buts to therapy! 

3. Kickass Co-workers. In hospitals, in clinics, in board rooms…any place where there is a nurse’s voice speaking is a place where the holy work of healthcare transformation is happening. Bless. 

4. My health. Coming through a pandemic physically unscathed feels like tiny miracles happening on the daily. Long-live vaccines and those who #gottheshot.

5. My education. Never have I been more grateful for the ‘RN’ designation following my name. It’s been a key that has unlocked many doors and continues to do so. We put the RN in reinvention.

6. The empathic spirit of nurses everywhere. The continued stories flooding in about the benevolence of nurses floors me in all the best ways.  

7. Nursing memes. My nursing love language.Who can diminish the instant injection of laughter-as-medicine that comes from an inside-joke traveling to you across the social media airwaves? 

8. Communities that support nurses. To all those who sewed masks, scrounged up PPE, concocted 3D-printed contraptions, and the like—LOVE YOU MEAN IT. 

9. The opportunity to dig deep. We’ve had a LOT to think/perseverate/obsess about lately. Not all of it is good, but it has all been necessary to make way for change. I’m proud to say that some of the best and brightest thought-leaders of this time are nurses. 

10. The rising tide of disgruntled nurses. You’ve been warned.