The Boxer, a Nurse, and an Artist

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade, 

and he carries the reminder of ev’ry glove that laid him down or cut him 

till he cried out in his anger and his shame, 

I am leaving, I am leaving, 

but the fighter still remains. 

                                                                           The Boxer    by Paul Simon 

     The other day I came home from work and went directly to bed. It was 6 o’clock in the evening. I’d had it. Worn out.  Didn’t want to see or talk to another person for the rest of the night.  It had nothing to do with my patients.  To me, patient care is the easiest part of nursing. It’s all the other stuff that sometimes wears me down. 

     Still, I continue to grow my  nursing skill and knowledge. If I’m going to spend so much time a day, a week, a year, an entire career doing anything, I may as well be good at it. Why would a person spend twenty or thirty years doing something she isn’t happy doing? For the money? Few things in life pay that well. If I hated nursing, I would continue to do it long enough to finance retraining in another profession, then quit. 

     I read an article asking readers, when did they fall in love with art? I don’t think I ever fell in love with art. I remember falling in love with the red and blue crayons I held in my two-year-old hands as I drew a double line around the white walls of my newborn brother’s nursery. I remember looking at the plain, white walls and being consumed by the desire to make a mark on them. I am not in love with art the way collectors are, but I am obsessive about making it. 

    In the same way, I’m not sure that I’m in love with nursing,  but I am in love with using my skills to help others. Everyday I go home from work, I leave knowing that despite a frustration or two, or disagreeing with a colleague, I did something that directly improved the life of another human being.  Perhaps I’m sentimental, a character flaw with negative connotations in both art and in nursing these days, but I like possessing skills that the average person doesn’t have and seeing the result of their use improving the plight of another human being. I like to think that making a piece of art which expresses a clear thought to another person also helps humanity, and so I keep returning to the studio as well, despite the frustrations that accompany the life of an artist. 

     The fighter still remains.