Summer Meets Intro to Professional Nursing

My summer has been going quite well so far. I have been babysitting from 9am until 4pm Monday through Friday-give or take an hour or two on each end--and I can essentially dictate my own hours. I guess you could say I'm living the ultimate "employed" summer life. It is very thought-provoking to spend a substantial amount of time with a nine-year old girl as a nineteen-year-old college student. Not only does it allow me to relive many of my own childhood activities such as playing out in the street, doing cartwheels on the lawn and creating games of my own, but it allows me to also hold complete responsibility of someone other than myself. This may seem obvious but it truly does alter many of my own day-to-day habits due to the fact that I am in complete responsibility of another human life. When the sign reads 45 MPH I actually have to drive 45 MPH! I leave my sailor language at home, I triple check both ways to assure there are no cars in sight before allowing her to scooter across and, oddly enough, I find myself placing my hand on her back when we cross the street in a busy parking lot and putting her on the side closest to the curb or the parked cars.

I have always been a responsible person, but this almost intuitive protect-at-all-costs thing is, for lack of a better phrase, blowing my mind. Clearly this is yet another sign that I should be a nurse and maybe even, in the way way way future--at least ten years and a shiny object on my left hand--a mother. It also helps me to believe that maybe, just maybe, I possess the particular requirements to be a nurse that cannot be learned from a textbook or a professor. Genuine concern for another human, accompanied by the responsibility for that person (especially one that is not a family member or a friend) is something that is an integral aspect of nursing and was one of the very first ideas I learned about in my nursing class at Villanova ... funny how my typical summer job has posed a direct correlation to my nursing class.