Inventory & Assessment

If pressed to list one thing I'm good at, taking tests would be the first thing to come to mind. (If pressed to list things am bad at, would say spatial reasoning, ironing, logic, jigsaw puzzles, reading maps, small talk at parties, spelling, not spilling things.) My whole life I have been the person who can sit in the back of the classroom and daydream, go dancing the night before, show up rumpled and without a pencil, and somehow still ace the exam. Mind you, I'm not boasting. It was well into college before I truly learned the need for concentration, hard work, discipline - how these virtues need flexing and stretching in the classroom to prepare one for (the way in which I, at least, want to live my) real, non-academic, meaningful life.

This week I have to take a big exam. And somehow, though I have taken my aptitude for tests and steeped it in study, preparation, strategy, and a million practice questions, I am a nervous wreck. I'm all itchy and twitchy; sleep escapes me. The knot in the pit of my stomach is bigger than any job interview, first date, or the Monday morning after I'd stranded my boss in Phoenix for the weekend. So desperately do I want it to be over...and yet so thoroughly do I dread the results.

I went home for the weekend, partially to celebrate my great, fine father and partially because being with Little Rat and my mother, unconditional supporters masquerading as the peanut gallery, is the only thing that tempers the nerves. Last night, my father read some statistics about the test and my mother said she had every confidence in me. Little Rat called me Nurse Kathy and then told me he'd pray for me. After we said good night, I laid in bed and tried to recall lab values for alanine transaminase (8-20 u/L) and what to do for pulseless ventricular tachycardia (defibrillate! stat!). My brain physically hurt, though, as if my gray matter was literally bursting at the seams with information. Earlier in the day, my friend and I were talking about the specific heat of water and I was near to distraught that I'd forgotten it. So much useless information, crowding out the necessary things to know. So, in the dark of my parents' spare room, I took deep breaths and said aloud all those things that I'm willing to forget to make room in my brain for this new information: my college boyfriend's mother's sisters' names, the lyrics to every track on Jagged Little Pill, the client/matter numbers for all the clients at my old firm. Goodbye. Gone.

That's as far as I got, though. No matter how useless it may be to me now, I don't want to let go of the list of train stations between Ikebukuro and Kotesashi on the Seibu-Ikebukuro line. I refuse to forget the way the my grandfather would cave to our pleading, put our stuffed animals on the blades of the ceiling fan, and watch us squeal with delight as they flew across the room. Or the way that my other grandfather would call out as we filed out of the house Don't forget. Granddad love you kids. World capitals are a must keep, along with US Presidents, Renaissance painters, Greek mythology, and my first kiss. As tempting as it is, I don't think I should forget all the awkward conversations with the boy who broke my heart, all the mortifying times good people pulled me aside and said hard things for my benefit, the shame of breaking my parents' trust or hurting my sisters' feelings. Without the weight of these anchors, what's to keep me from unlearning my lessons, from reverting to the inadequate, inconsiderate behavior of my youth? Perhaps I'm a memory pack rat, but at least I don't compartmentalize.

Sorting through my mind's content, like items for a garage sale, the significance of this exam began to shrink back into its proper place. If I don't pass this exam, it will mess up my here & now plans a bit. This grown-up life, this start of a career, is all teed up -- and after bouncing around like a pin ball for so many years, an almost physical ache for patch of permanence, a bit of settled, courses through me. I love nursing, I do. In so many ways, it is a perfect fit and I'm excited about the job that I will start in July in the Emergency Department. But it's only a small part of the bigger picture. When I think of the sort of life I want to live, I imagine a pasture full of cows, a house full of kids, shelves full of books, pots full of soup -- days full of taking care of my neighbors, whoever they may be. None of those things hinge on a nursing license. And if I'm pressed to say one thing I'm truly good at, it's getting from here to there by circuitous, surprising route, enjoying the ride all the while.