In February, I finally fulfilled my two-year contract at my hospital in Denver and also the necessary two years experience of nursing before one can travel nurse. I wasted no time and left a couple weeks later.
In case you are unfamiliar with travel nursing: I work with an agency who sets me up with jobs and is who gives me benefits and health insurance. I tell my recruiter where I want to go and other criteria I may have. The more flexible I am, the more jobs I will find. Then she e-mails me available jobs as they come up — tells me the hospital, shift, pay, etc. The assignments are usually 13 weeks long. The hourly pay is low but the rest of the pay comes in an untaxed stipend. Travelers typically make more than double than the regular staff nurse, which is why travel nursing is so appealing. There are lots of disadvantages to travel nursing too and moving every few months is certainly not for every one, but it’s pretty perfect for me.
I was hoping to travel with my friend Molly, who I worked with in Denver, to southern California, but we ended up finding ourselves in San Francisco. At first, I wasn’t even considering living with strangers. I would either live with Molly or alone. But after searching and searching, alternative options were the only options in my price range. Half the reason I’m traveling is to save money so I didn’t want to spend so much of it on rent. There was a couple weeks between me and Molly’s job offers, plus our hospitals are quite far apart, so we ended up living separately, both renting a room in a house. We’ll get to that later…
Packing. Moving. Kind of daunting. But kind of what my dreams are made of. When I’m anxious about something, looking forward to it, especially when it involves preparing and organizing, I really have a hard time sleeping and lie there thinking about getting ready for it. There’s no better example than packing to move. I love keeping minimal things and moving is the best time to narrow your belongings down. Each piece has to deserve to go to the next place with you.
I have a large cargo box on top of my car. I thought I’d have no problem fitting everything I needed to live with indefinitely in there and the hatchback. (I do have some things at mom & dad’s that I want to keep for the future but don’t need to travel around with.) I really thought I was going to kill this packing lightly, living with less, living out of my car thing, but I was actually packed to the brim. There’s several things I brought, like kitchen stuff and bedding, that I’ll only need if I get an unfurnished apartment somewhere, which may never happen, so I think I will get rid of a few of these things. But another reason I brought a lot of kitchen stuff is what if I stay in a mostly-stocked kitchen but they don’t have a blender? Am I just supposed to not drink a smoothie for thirteen weeks? Or not steam my veggies if they don’t have a bamboo steamer? Or not spiralize my zucchini? I’m not an animal.
So, we packed, said goodbye to Denver, and headed west. We camped in the Mojave Desert, which has to be one of the coolest terrains to me. The next day we explored Joshua Tree (same terrain) then headed to San Diego. We met Molly there and stayed with her parents for a couple of weeks. We both really wanted to stay in southern California. It was hard leaving.
San Francisco. Maybe if I wasn’t a nurse and it wasn’t my job to take care of the city’s crazy people (did you know crazy people are hospitalized WAY more than normal people?), I would see far less of this demographic and SF would be more appealing. But alas, this is my job and this city is CHOCK FULL of crazies. The homeless problem is out of control and homeless/drugs/alcohol make up a majority of my patients. They’re a rough crowd and not my favorite to take care of. Also, I work FIVE days a week so it just feels constant. Besides that, the city is pretty great. Except for where I live.
These first six weeks I’ve been staying in Bayview-Hunter’s Point. I knew going into it the neighborhood was a little “ghetto” but I was okay with a little less gentrification. It wasn’t until I got there that I learned the neighborhood is gang-ridden and truly unsafe. Day 1 I checked my lease to see when the hell I could get out of there. Day 2 Molly and I found an apartment together, but it wasn’t ready yet and we had both already paid for a month’s rent anyway and didn’t want to waste that. The first week I tried a few times to take Henley on walks, with my fist holding an open knife in my pocket. I gave up on that and found a nice park a 10 minute drive away and a wonderful beach a 20 minute drive away. Six weeks of dealing with the owner of the house visiting every day (who doesn’t live there and I thought I wouldn’t see), her outdoor cat that got surgery and became an indoor cat, stepping over a crackhead on my front steps most nights, asking for money after I just came home from dealing with trying to take care of people like him (with zero cooperation or appreciation), and even heard a round of gun shots and a young man’s last moans. (Sorry, Mom & Dad. Waited ’til I got out of there alive to tell ya that, though!)
But today… today is MOVING DAY and I couldn’t be happier. I’m sitting at a coffee shop with Henley with a few hours to kill before I can go to the new place. He’s sitting underneath the legs of a woman at the table next to me, wearing her long dress like a nun’s hat. It’s a beautiful day! I’ve been dreaming about going to a florist today and carrying brown paper-wrapped flowers up to our new apartment. It’s the simple things, like fresh flowers and no murders, that make a house a home.
