July 2013 | Of Night Shifts, a Newly Claimed Nameplate, and the Peculiar Business of Worrying About a Future That Hasn’t Happened Yet.

I have a rather unfortunate habit of attending imaginary meetings with my future self, usually at an hour when any sensible person should be asleep. These meetings are rarely productive. There are no minutes to approve, no refreshments, and absolutely no evidence that the future has agreed to participate. Yet there I am, lying in bed, discussing possible careers, financial responsibilities, personal ambitions, and situations that have not even occurred. By midnight, I have considered seventeen different scenarios. By one in the morning, I have developed concerns about at least twelve of them. And by the time I finally attempt to sleep, I am exhausted from solving problems that may never exist. Honestly, if worrying were considered professional experience, I would already qualify for a managerial position.

I suppose I have always been like this. I enjoy making plans, imagining possibilities, and constructing little versions of the future inside my head. There is something exciting about having ambitions, particularly when you are young enough to believe that life might eventually cooperate with most of them. I want to accomplish things, become successful in my profession, travel to places I have only seen in photographs, and create a future that will make the sacrifices of the present worthwhile. None of these desires is particularly unreasonable. The difficulty begins when planning becomes an excuse to worry about everything that could possibly prevent those plans from happening.

There are evenings when I become so concerned about tomorrow that I almost forget I am still living today. I wonder whether I am making the right decisions, whether my career will develop as I hope, and whether the opportunities I am waiting for will eventually arrive. One thought leads to another until an ordinary concern becomes a complicated little drama featuring events that have not occurred and people who have not even entered the story. Apparently, my imagination has unlimited funding for hypothetical disasters.

Lately, however, I have begun questioning the usefulness of all this mental activity. What exactly do I accomplish by repeatedly worrying about circumstances I cannot yet influence? I can spend hours imagining what might happen, but the following morning will still arrive according to its own schedule. The future has never once offered to rearrange itself simply because I stayed awake considering its possibilities.

It is a rather irritating discovery, especially for someone who likes to feel prepared.

I am not suggesting that planning is unnecessary. Quite the opposite. I believe ambition requires direction, preparation, and a willingness to make decisions that support our goals. If I want to become a better nurse, I need to develop my clinical skills, continue studying, seek guidance, and gain experience. If I want to accomplish something meaningful, I cannot merely admire the idea while waiting for circumstances to organise themselves on my behalf. Dreams are wonderful companions, but they are notoriously unreliable employees. They require somebody else to do the actual work.

Perhaps that is where I have occasionally misunderstood the difference between planning and worrying. Planning asks what I can reasonably do to prepare. Worrying repeatedly asks what might go wrong, even after I have considered everything within my control. One encourages action; the other can leave me sitting in the same place, increasingly anxious about possibilities that remain entirely hypothetical.

And goodness knows I have devoted enough time to the second activity.

This week has given me a rather practical reason to reconsider my priorities. After returning to nursing duty on July 1, I have been adjusting to the familiar yet strangely different experience of working in a hospital again. I have met new colleagues, become acquainted with unfamiliar routines, and rediscovered the mixture of excitement and responsibility that accompanies caring for patients. It has been almost a year and a half since I was regularly involved in clinical practice, and the experience of returning has reminded me how much I missed the profession I worked so hard to enter.

Then, on July 4, I finally received my nameplate.

It may sound like such a small thing to celebrate. After all, it is only a nameplate, an ordinary piece of professional identification that most people probably notice for approximately two seconds before continuing with whatever brought them to the hospital. But to me, it represented something considerably more personal. There was my name, ready to accompany me through my duties as a Registered Nurse. After four years of nursing school, the Nursing Licensure Examination, and the long interval before returning to regular clinical work, something as simple as a nameplate felt like another small confirmation that I was finally beginning the career I had imagined.

I found myself smiling at the thought.

There was a time when I wore my student-nurse uniform and looked at the registered nurses around me with admiration. They appeared confident, knowledgeable, and remarkably accustomed to the demands of hospital life. Meanwhile, I was the student worrying about nursing rationales, incomplete requirements, and whether my Clinical Instructor might suddenly decide to test the limits of my memory. I wanted to become one of those professionals, to possess the knowledge and judgement necessary to care for patients safely, and to experience what it meant to practise nursing beyond the familiar supervision of college.

And now, here I was, holding a nameplate that belonged to me.

Of course, receiving it did not magically transform me into an experienced nurse. I still have plenty to learn, and I suspect the coming months will provide more than enough opportunities to discover the limitations of my knowledge. A nameplate cannot substitute for sound clinical judgement, and a professional title certainly does not eliminate the responsibility to continue developing one’s skills. But there was something satisfying about recognising a milestone that my younger self would have been delighted to reach.

Sometimes we become so occupied with imagining our next achievement that we forget to appreciate the ones already sitting quietly in front of us.

I think I needed that reminder.

Last night’s duty was particularly demanding. We had a busy NOC shift, the sort that makes the hours feel both terribly long and strangely fast. There is something distinctive about working at night in a hospital. Outside, most people are sleeping, houses are quiet, and the ordinary activities of the day have temporarily disappeared. Inside, however, healthcare continues according to an entirely different rhythm. Patients still require care, observations need completing, and responsibilities do not become less important simply because the clock has passed midnight.

I am beginning to understand why night duty can be so exhausting. The body seems to maintain a rather stubborn preference for sleeping when it is dark, regardless of what the duty roster might suggest. Yet there is also something meaningful about being part of the team caring for patients while the rest of the world appears to be resting. It reminds me that illness and healthcare do not observe the convenient boundaries of ordinary working hours.

There were moments during the shift when I felt tired, naturally. I would be very suspicious of any nurse who claimed that a demanding night duty required absolutely no physical effort. But despite the exhaustion, I enjoyed being able to care for people. I appreciated the opportunity to practise my profession, work alongside colleagues, and gradually become more familiar with the responsibilities I had spent years preparing to undertake.

I still find it interesting how nursing can leave a person physically exhausted yet professionally satisfied. There is no contradiction in recognising that a shift was difficult while also appreciating the work accomplished during it. I can enjoy nursing without pretending that every duty is pleasant, and I can acknowledge fatigue without questioning my commitment to the profession.

By the time I returned home, however, my enthusiasm had reached a very practical conclusion: I needed sleep.

And sleep I did.

I woke up at around two o’clock in the afternoon, which might sound like an extraordinary display of laziness to somebody unfamiliar with night duty. But I assure you, there is a perfectly respectable explanation. While other people were enjoying their beds during the night, I was working. Therefore, waking at two in the afternoon seems entirely reasonable, although I suspect certain early risers would still have opinions about it.

Let them have their opinions. I had earned my rest.

Now that I have a day off, I finally have a little time to sit down and write. There are no immediate patients to attend to, no unfamiliar hospital routine demanding my attention, and no urgent reason to hurry through the afternoon. It feels pleasant to enjoy a moment that belongs entirely to me, particularly after a demanding shift.

And strangely enough, sitting here has made me think about how much of my life I spend looking towards the next thing.

Before passing the board examination, I worried about becoming a Registered Nurse. After passing, I thought about finding opportunities to practise. When I returned to clinical duty, I began wondering how I would develop my skills and what kind of nurse I might eventually become. Now that I have received my nameplate and started working again, my mind is already considering the next milestone.

It is almost as though I have appointed myself the manager of a never-ending list of future concerns.

Every achievement becomes another starting point, and every starting point introduces another collection of questions. I suppose ambition naturally works that way. We accomplish something, discover new possibilities, and begin imagining what might come next. There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve our circumstances.

But I wonder whether I am sometimes moving too quickly through the experiences I once desperately wanted to have.

A year ago, I would have been delighted simply to know that I would eventually return to nursing practice. I wanted the opportunity to wear my white uniform again, meet patients, and continue learning in a hospital environment. Those were the things I hoped for during the months when my professional life seemed uncertain.

Now they are happening.

And instead of appreciating them properly, I occasionally find myself worrying about circumstances that may not become relevant for years.

How terribly ungrateful that must appear to the younger version of me who was waiting for this opportunity.

Perhaps I owe her a little more appreciation.

I am beginning to realise that being present does not mean abandoning ambition or refusing to plan for tomorrow. It simply means recognising that today deserves some of the attention we so generously devote to the future. I can prepare for professional opportunities while appreciating my current responsibilities. I can work towards financial stability while remaining grateful for what I already possess. I can imagine travelling to distant places without overlooking the ordinary pleasures available to me now.

And perhaps I can go to bed occasionally without conducting a full investigation into everything that might happen over the next ten years.

That would be a remarkable personal achievement.

There is another reason this particular week feels significant. My birthday is approaching, and apparently the calendar has decided that I am about to become another year older. July 7 is only a few days away, and I am preparing to celebrate my twenty-third birthday.

Twenty-three!

Goodness.

I realise that people considerably older than me would probably laugh at the suggestion that twenty-three is an alarming age. They might remind me that I am still young, that I have plenty of time to accomplish my ambitions, and that complaining about growing older at twenty-three is practically an invitation to be scolded.

But birthdays have a peculiar way of making us examine our lives.

Every year, we celebrate another milestone while quietly considering what has changed since the previous one. We remember the things we hoped to accomplish, the experiences we have gained, and the plans that remain unfinished. Sometimes we are pleased with our progress. Other times, we wonder whether we should have achieved more.

I suspect I am beginning to experience that particular birthday tradition.

At twenty-two, I was still waiting for certain parts of my professional life to develop. Now, as I approach twenty-three, I have returned to nursing duty, met new colleagues, and begun taking steps towards the career I want to build. These may seem like modest developments when compared with the extraordinary accomplishments of other people, but they matter to me.

And perhaps that is enough reason to celebrate.

I do not need to possess a perfectly arranged future before allowing myself to appreciate another birthday. I do not need to have accomplished every ambition on my list or resolved every uncertainty about what comes next. I can recognise the progress I have made without pretending that I have already figured everything out.

After all, twenty-three is hardly the age at which a person should be expected to possess a complete understanding of life.

I am still discovering what interests me, what challenges me, and how I want to develop professionally and personally. I have dreams that seem reasonably achievable and others that remain wonderfully ambitious. I have questions whose answers may become clearer through experience, and I have plans that will probably change as circumstances unfold.

Perhaps growing older involves becoming more comfortable with the fact that the future cannot be completely organised in advance.

I would like to become more patient with that uncertainty.

For now, I have a profession I enjoy, a new workplace to become familiar with, colleagues to learn from, and a nameplate that makes me smile whenever I remember what it represents. I have just completed a demanding night shift, enjoyed a well-deserved sleep, and found a little time to write about an ordinary day that suddenly feels worth preserving.

There is more than enough here to occupy my attention without borrowing worries from next week.

I wonder what I will think when I read this entry several years from now. Perhaps I will laugh at how seriously I approached the possibility of turning twenty-three. I may be amused by my enthusiasm over receiving a nameplate or wonder why I devoted so much thought to the simple act of returning to nursing practice.

But I hope I will remember how meaningful these little milestones felt at the time.

A nameplate may eventually become an ordinary part of my uniform. Night duties may become familiar, and the excitement of meeting new colleagues may gradually settle into the comfortable routine of working together. The things that seem new today will eventually become part of my professional history.

And perhaps that is precisely why I want to appreciate them while they are happening.

Tomorrow will bring its own responsibilities. There will be more duties, more opportunities, and undoubtedly more occasions when my imagination attempts to predict events that have not occurred. I cannot promise that I will suddenly become an exceptionally patient person who never worries unnecessarily.

That would be rather ambitious, even by my standards.

But tonight, perhaps I can try something different.

I can look at my new nameplate and remember the years of studying, examinations, and waiting that brought me here. I can appreciate the satisfaction of completing another shift and recognise that my work, however demanding, gives me opportunities to care for people.

And I can look forward to my birthday without treating the arrival of another year as an examination of everything I have yet to accomplish.

I began writing this afternoon thinking about how much time I lose worrying about tomorrow.

Now, sitting here after a long sleep and a demanding night duty, I find myself considering the small things that have already happened this week.

A new nameplate. Another nursing shift completed. A quiet afternoon on my day off. And a birthday approaching with all the excitement and mild existential confusion that turning twenty-three apparently requires.

Perhaps the future can manage without my supervision for one evening.

After all, it has done a perfectly good job of arriving every morning without consulting me.

And if tomorrow insists on bringing another complicated situation, I shall deal with it when it comes.

For now, I have something much more immediate to consider.

What exactly does a girl do to celebrate turning twenty-three?

Preferably something that does not involve waking up at three in the morning, answering five hundred nursing questions, or spending twelve hours on her feet.

I think I have earned a slightly more entertaining birthday.

Two days to go before July 7. O’geee, getting older! Hahaha!

From my early nursing career archives, July 2013 — a new nameplate, a demanding night shift, and a reminder to appreciate the moments I once hoped would become possible.

— Just Anj, RN