My Thoughts, Unedited

I’m frustrated and prematurely burnt out. I keep on going, telling myself that I can hold out one more semester, one more year. I tell myself that this nearly unsustainable lifestyle is necessary for a short time in order to attain a goal that will help make things just a little better; livable is all I ask. I have been saying this to myself for 16 years.
First it was about living with split custody in two households that hated each other and feeling a part of neither. Then it was about working my way through college as an undergrad, moonlighting as a full time EMT in King County’s EMS system and the list goes on. Always feeling like I am falling behind, I work extra hard to try and keep my head above the surface forever telling myself that there are shallower waters just somewhere beyond the horizon.
Most recently I find myself about to begin a new PhD program. I have tried hard to strategically plan out how I will begin to attain this goal and make life a little healthier. I got excited because I knew something had to change. Normally I hate change, I think we all do; but now I realize that the pain of things staying the same is worse than the stress of facing change and so I welcome it. I make plans and make sacrifices. I tell myself that working hard will bare good fruit and that tending talents and developing expertise will one day be used to bless others and to make a difference and perhaps even to further the kingdom of God. Or maybe I just want to be a good teacher?
So here I find myself negotiating a full time teaching contract. I feel like for now at least, I need just one primary job (I would still stay per diem at the hospital) so that I don’t set myself up for failure in the PhD program. I can’t possibly picture my life without teaching and contact with students is what stimulates me and motivates me to keep on learning. But now, as I look at this constantly changing proposed contract, I am once again frustrated. Evening clinical is not my preference, but perhaps necessary for next year’s PhD course schedule. Pharmacology is not my area of expertise and I would have to spend significant amounts of time rewriting the curriculum. OB clinical! Are we forgetting that I’ve never worked in OB and was significantly traumatized by it when I was in nursing school? Mental health clinical; I am mental, does that count?
You want me to move my office out of the skills lab so I can have more serendipitous contact with the other professors who incidentally have historically made me feel disrespected and unappreciated? Did I neglect to mention that I became an educator because I loved working with students? Do you know that I often sit in my office with a stick in the door until 9 pm making myself more than available to them for questions or help with skills or just a listening ear? My “role” changes so quickly that I can’t keep up with it and I constantly feel like I’m a failure as teacher, which I have to remind myself is not true.
Do you just want a body with a master’s degree who is willing to work for next to nothing, or an experienced RN with a expertise in a unique clinical area and specialized training in nursing education, curriculum development and adult learning theory? Everyone wants a job that they feel like they are well suited for, one that capitalizes on their talents and areas of expertise. Everyone wants to be effective in what they do and wants others to be satisfied with and blessed by their work. Why then, do I constantly feel like I am being put in positions that emphasize my weaknesses? Why am I being be approached by other professors who question my teaching practices and belittle me? Why am I made to feel like I’m trespassing in my own office? Why is my area of clinical expertise ignored?
Do it all it a misuse of resources? Should I recite 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (“In my weakness, He is made strong.”) Do I look at is as a unique opportunity to challenge myself and to grow? Should I see it as a closing door? Maybe it is “all of the above.”