The First Day
I woke up before five o’clock this morning which is not unusual for me these days. When I started the process of making my first short film last year, I was waking up very early with mild anxiety. Once I started thinking of either production issues or how to make scenes, I couldn’t go back to sleep any more.
This morning was a little bit different. Today was my first day of a new job. It’s not only a new job, but it is a full-time job that I tried so hard to avoid.
About a year ago, I quit my regular job as a nurse practitioner, partially, so that I could focus on my creative work. And partially, I was so jaded to work within the American healthcare industry in which I have been involved pretty much since I moved to the US in 1997.
I previously wrote a little bit about my time in nursing school, but I didn’t mention why I chose to go a nursing school. Well, I didn’t intend to. I didn’t even intend to stay in this country permanently. I liked to travel and I wanted to travel for the rest of my life, but I needed to find a way to make money no matter where I’d decide to stay or live. One day, I met this kind older lady from the South, Shirley, at the college cafeteria. She was a nurse in her state, but moved to Arizona to attend the community college where I was to study something else. I don’t remember the context of our conversation, but she told me about the “profession” of a nurse practitioner (and yes, no matter how Trump and his uneducated followers put, it is a profession). The way she explained what a nurse practitioner was is quite simple. It is a nurse with an advance degree who can do most of the things that Medical Doctors do. That instantly became my goal: to be a nurse practitioner, so that I could work anywhere in the world with financial stability. And, I had to forget that I didn’t even like to watch bloody scenes in movies and hated needles. But, once I was determined, I had to go for it, so I did.
Fast forward, I successfully graduated and got a job as a Registered Nurse at a local hospital. I enjoyed not having to go to school any more, actually making money (not to mention my first RN job paid something like ten dollars an hour), and having a health insurance for the first time (yes, I felt like a decent citizen). But, that was not exactly my goal, so I knew I had to keep moving forward. I moved to Tuscon from a small US-Mexico border town to get a new job and more experience to advance my education. I worked full-time and took more college classes full-time which I needed to go to graduate school. I only went to a two-year college in Japan to study some literature and language and had never studied so hard in my life! Eventually, I was accepted into a nurse practitioner program in Atlanta, Georgia and later, finally ended my school life! By that time, I felt fully qualified to be part of America; I was full of debts. My dream of a life of a world traveler was now gone.
I got my certificate and state license, so I was ready to start a job I was offered back in Tuscon. But unfortunately, after all the stressful school work and medical training and with my marriage falling apart, I went into anxiety and depression I’d never even imagined I could, being fairly optimistic person all these years. I never started the job I was offered. I was ashamed, but what could I do? It took me several months to recover enough to start a life again. That’s when I said goodbye to Arizona and headed for Oregon to reset. It was 2010. I got my first job as a nurse practitioner in Coos Bay, Oregon that became my little sweet home for a while.
Since then, I had many different jobs. I always intended to stay with one as long as I could, but there was always something that made me move on. I started writing more seriously about ten years ago and started a part-time and not-so-exciting-job with much less salary, but gave me more time to write. My plan was to slowly fade out from the healthcare job and to write full-time if that would ever happen. But, things went to the other direction. I was filing a divorce and needed more money, so I had to get a better paying, but more demanding job, and once that settled, the COVID-19 pandemic happened and that changed everything. Then this last year, I lost a perfect part-time job. The job was to balance with the artistic part of my life, but instead, I had to look for another job, again.
So, going back to the first day of the new full-time job I never intended to get…. I sure realize I am lucky to find a job in this climate and I should be grateful, and I am. After my first day, I went to kendo practice hoping I would kick my emotional stress, frustration, and doubt etc., only to realize my kendo wasn’t really improving either and that made me even more stressed! When I told this to my old friend in Tokyo, she said, “In that situation, you should go back to 初心 (shoshin/beginner’s mind).” Ha! 初心 is one of the words of philosophical teaching in kendo and applies to many situations in Japanese culture. I am definitely having a shoshin moment right now and thinking back of those hard days of anxiety, depression, and lots tears, and the beautiful little town on the Oregon Coast where I started my very first job so excited and scared at the same time.
Photo above: Sunset in Coos Bay, Oregon, by Patricia Davidson, local photographer
My very very first job as an RN with my operating room crew in Douglas, Arizona, in 2001. Next to me (with a hat) is my great mentor, Luis Romo, who taught me to check my own pulse before attempting to save someone else’s life!