enough.

i've never been very good at accepting less than perfect.  five years of nursing has taught me that there is a limit to how much i can give, that sometimes doing 'the best i can' is all i've got.  but lately that hasn't been enough.  you'd think that i'd get used to being so frustrated, seeing as how i've spent the better part of my career feeling that way.  unfortunately not.

this week, which sadly has only been 3 days, has made me realize a lot of things.  i'm not happy in my job at all anymore.  the compassion that used to come so naturally to me just doesn't anymore.  i've started to view almost everyone that i come in contact with as an inconvenience to me and an obstacle to me making it through one more day at this miserable job.  i don't remember the last time i loved my work or the last time i thought something at work was fun or exciting or interesting, in fact i'm so unhappy that i can't even remember what made me want to do this in the first place.  i've lost all joy and wonder; the reality of nursing and working on a toxic, thankless floor has killed that for me.

because the truth is, nothing i do is enough.

i work in a place where all we hear is "good job with that, BUT...".  management nags us constantly.  now i realize that this is their job, but it's excessive.  we can't just be piloting one new project that no one wants to participate in, it has to be three.  there isn't one new required form of duplicate charting, there's two.  it doesn't matter if patient acuities are through the roof and nurses with 10 years of experience are literally crying, half the floor WILL go to a mandatory meeting to discuss what we can do to make the floor better...oh the irony.

but it's more that that, really.  it's the feeling that my patients deserve more than what i can offer them, not because i'm incapable but because i'm so stressed and spread so thin.  it's the feeling that i've never had to work so hard to be such a failure in all my life.  i'm tired of sucking at my job all the time.  i'm tired of trying my very hardest to barely keep up, and to fall short of the 'expectations' that i'm being held to.

every ounce of care that i used to have for this job and this floor has been sucked out of me.  i have become the 'things will never change' nurse, and i'm sure it shows.  you can only give more than you have to other people with nothing in return for so long.  after that you apparently become bitter and washed up and sad and old.  well who knew?

i feel like a caged animal.  i am desperate to escape, and i'm willing to claw anything that keeps me from my goal of making it through another day.

i used to be kind and now i'm calloused.  i used to be optimistic and now i'm a downer.  i don't have compassion and i don't have patience and i probably have no business working with people at all when i feel this way, but i have bills to pay and no other choice.  i've begun to desperately search for another job.  i've sent applications, i've emailed managers.  at this point i will do ANYTHING to escape...leave my friends, work nights, lose my seniority...ANYTHING.

i  can't work like this anymore.  i can't live like this anymore.  i've just had enough.