I had this moment today.
I am a flushed, florid, ruby skinned Irish girl and I had this moment today where I started to cry and it was not a pretty cry, it was an ugly cry like only us tomato skinned when worked up people can do, impressively ugly crying.
Anyways....
I started to cry over the patients we lost to covid, to think about them and remember them by name. I then started to cry for myself too, feeling sad about basically being in social isolation for the past few years so that I wouldn't spread covid.
And then something happened, when I stopped crying, I felt better than I have felt in a long long time.
Its kind of goofy, but I am actually finding it hard to adjust to working only 40 hours and not being on a covid unit. Like I am all charged up for a fight that isn't there for me right now. Like I was feeling lost about what to do when not constantly working - paranoidly waiting to hear about the next variant and being all tense and anxious, just waiting. I even went down dark paths....
well if its not Covid there will be another worse pandemic soon, better get ready, prepare, stock-up, grow anti-viral plants. I was all pandemic, pandemic!
Then I just sort of let go.....its a weird experience and hard to explain with words. I am like I don't really need to socially isolate for now. I had my vaccines, I recently had Omicron, I am not working with covid patients currently. No reason I cannot start to see people again and do things! And I reconnected with some folks and I deeply cried over patients we lost and even let go of some guilt.
I felt horrible that I patient I cared for died of covid while I was out sick with covid, going if I stuck it out, maybe I could have saved him, maybe the agency nurse didn't do everything possible.
And I had been holding on to that and tormented by that and I thought of his memory, I cried for him, I apologized to him and then I felt this moment of having let go that was almost a spiritual experience that is hard to explain.
I do realize there could be another variant and that I will likely need to isolate again at some point, for right now, at this moment, I am no more dangerous to be around anyone else and I feel like I am finally starting to feel from Covid both physically and in my very soul.