insomnia

I am awake at 12:45am and I have to be at work in 6 hours. Lately I either barely get any sleep (usually nights/days immediately before a shift) or I sleep 13 hours. I'm not really sure what my deal is, but I guess I'm just kinda stressed about what I want to do with my life. I know, I know. I'm a nurse and I love it and that is absolutely what I want to do in life. Even after some of the shittiest days, when it comes down to it, there really isnt anything else I could picture myself doing. BUT, I do know that I want to go back to school eventually. I dont think I want to be a floor nurse for the rest of my life. I just dont know which direction I want to take my nursing career. As much as I love teaching I dont want to be a nurse educator or a professor; I'd rather be a clinical instructor or something more hands-on, but you cant really make a career out of being an instructor. And I'm not sure I really see myself as a nurse practitioner... maybe... I just don't know. I think the issue is that I still really enjoy floor nursing. I'm not jaded and over-worked yet, so I dont feel the need to find something new. And even if I do reach that point, there's always the option to go to a different unit - another med-surg unit, the PACU, ICU, anything. (Although I dont think I want to be an ICU nurse. I want the knowledge but not the job.) There's so much you can do as an RN. The problem is most Masters programs are being phased out and becoming a Doctorate program. So for example, if I wanted to be come a nurse practitioner (NP) I would be required to have a PhD, not just a Masters. Now, if I graduate with my Masters and become an NP before 2015, I can just be grandfathered in and not have to do the DNP program. Yes, 2015 is still a ways away, but in order to get the hospital to pay for my graduate education, I would have to go to school part-time and work full-time. The NP program is 3 years if its done part-time. So, that significantly decreases the time I have to figure life out. That also would mean I would have to stay at Georgetown for another 3 years, which I'm not opposed to, I just dont know if I want to try someplace else- a different hospital? a different city perhaps?

Anyway, it's now 1am and my alarm will go off in less than 5 hours, so I should stop rambling on and try to get some sleep...