Close to the Bone

When I was twenty years old, I became a registered nurse. When I was thirty-nine, my first book was published. How amazed I was to get paid money for something I wrote. I would have done it for nothing just to see a cover with my name on it. I used the advance from that book to get three teeth filled and to buy a new bed and brand new sheets. During the next few years, I wrote several more books. Each of them came with a modest advance.

During those years, I continued to work part-time as a nurse. But oh, how I wanted to quit. I didn't want to be a nurse any more. I didn't want to go to a regular job. I wanted to write full time. I wanted to be able to say without explanation, "I'm a writer" when asked what it was I did.

Finally, after I'd been writing five years, my agent secured the contract I'd dreamed of. A deal that paid well enough I could quit my real job. For two years I stayed at home and wrote full time. It was wonderful. I spent my days in my sunny home office churning out chapters. But then that contract was fulfilled and the next really good one unexpectedly fell through. Faced with immediate financial need, I had to go back to work. Quickly.

I was not a happy camper.

It's been four years since I gave up that dream of writing full time. Four years of writing part- time and nursing part-time. Yesterday morning, I worked on my current book. Last night at the hospital, I held a woman's hand while she breathed her last breath. Her family, exhausted from days of keeping watch, had all gone home. In the quiet of her room, it was just her and me. I touched her face, stroked her white hair, and whispered goodbye when she finally left.

Nursing is life at its most basic. It's hunger. Thirst. Pain and fear. It's breath. Skin. Urine and poop. It's red Jello. Morphine. Helping people to the bathroom and changing sweaty sheets.

Forever I've wrestled with finding peace and balance about what it is I'm supposed to be doing with my life. Am I a nurse or a writer? It's only this year, finally, that I've come to realize how blessed I am that I get to do both.

Nursing is work that is close to the bone.

So is writing when it's done right.