A Fated Fall

I moved to Montana full time one year ago this month. It feels like a lifetime ago that I left the hussel and bussel of the beltway for the peace and serenity of the mountains. My journey from east to west began 3 years ago. I was in full time school, working full time, preparing my daughter to begin kindergarten and basically paying for a babysitter and my rent to survive. My body and mind and nervous system were wrecked. My schedule required me to be up for 24 hours straight twice a week with my work, school, and childcare. Something had to give and the universe told me it was time to take a break. Perhaps a out of state travel contract where I could just focus on working and regaining some sense of equillibrium. A nervous system reset. I called it my post divorce “eat pray love Mecca.”

I’ll never forget the phone call to my recruiter. “I need out of this nursing home.” I had been working at the worst nursing home in the state of Maryland for 6 months because to put it plainly it paid the most and I was a broke ass single mom living paycheck to paycheck. I remember thinking to myself those mornings I would complete my 12 hour night shift at 7 am. “This experience is changing me. If I had any other choice, I’d be gone.”

And the experience did change me. It showed me the amount of pain I could endure. I injured a shoulder lifting a patient I never should have been left alone to lift. My body that I had…