True story from a nurse Leslie

I have been talking to many people about perspective. Flipping your thinking. Not owning other people’s judgments of you and wanted to share this story from my own experience. Perhaps it will help you.
I was a registered nurse for 30 years. It is a passion, my calling and was so much my identity. As a type A, determined INFJ, I became an EMT and FF at 16. By 21 I was a nurse and a paramedic. At 23 I became a flight nurse. That means I flew around in helicopters to accident scenes, to the worst imaginable pain and trauma, and hauled your butt out of whatever situation it was in. It was challenging, rewarding, hard, painful and every conceivable thing in between. I like to tell people I see the best and worst of humanity simultaneously. It is humbling and inspiring. I say this to emphasize that I loved my job.
It nearly killed me. Not the near misses such as engine failures, in flight fires, 24, 36, 48 and sometimes 72 hours shifts. The collected burden of the weight of humanity and its suffering. I ground and center and shield really well. Still, I developed PTSD. I had physical injury after physical injury. As a job requirement I had to be able to lift 300 pounds in a two person lift and carry it 50 feet. I am 5’3” and a tough cookie. I did it. I wanted it, and I worked to make my body and mind strong enough. In 2009, I sustained a work related back injury on what would be my final flight. My life changed.
No need to share all those details. However, the take away is I left nursing. After 30 years. Completely. And I lost some of myself. I had to find my center and a new direction. That took time and that dark night of the soul.
During this time, I took a job at a large home improvement store. I needed to do something. Anything. It was boring, I hated it, but hey it’s a job and I’m moving forward.
So where is this going?
One day I’m assisting a customer. This delightful man was a Vietnam vet and we stuck up a conversation while waiting for someone to unlock a cabinet to retrieve an item. We talked about places we had both lived, his military experience, my flight experience and our shared PTSD. During this conversation a woman and her husband walked by. She had overhead that I had lived in Colorado and wanted to know where and what I did there. I told her Greeley and that I had been a flight nurse with the program there. She very slowly scanned me from head to toe and then said, “YOU were a flight nurse and now you work here!” She sadly shook her head. “How low you have fallen”. Wow. I just stood there sincerely hoping my mouth had not hit the ground. There was, honestly not a nice or pleasant thought in my head. The vet stood next to me visibly shocked. Inside I steamed.
I looked up at her and smiled and said “well bless you for your kind words. I hope you have a fabulous day.”
Why?
Well, what a great lesson. She read but a sentence or two of my story and assumed she knew the whole book. Why did my change of circumstance cause her to react in this fashion? Did she have hopes and dreams of traveling the country helping people doing exactly what she loved? I don’t know. Honestly it does not matter to me. The vet with me was furious. I chose to remind myself that her ignorant assumption did not define me. She will never know the highs and lows of my journey. And it isn’t my place to educate her. What I do know is that one of the most amazing things about this life story is that there is always another chapter to be written and it isn’t necessary to keep re reading the past unless if brings you joy or you need to learn a lesson. Remember that one moment is merely a sentence, page or chapter in your story and in and of itself does not define you.
Write your own story. No one else will ever be able
To craft it with the skill and love that you can.
Love to you all. Have a blessed day.
Leslie C. Bertrand