One of my biggest struggles since finishing graduate school has been changing the self-care habits I developed in school. For starters, graduate school is expensive, for one so cheap foods are a must.
Aside from the financial situation of being a full-time student, there is the fact that no matter how late you stay up, how early you get out of bed, and how many classes you inevitably end up skipping, there is just not enough time to do everything you want to do. And since you are paying good money for your education, and the professors institute serious deadlines that must be met. So after school, if my choices were get my hair done, go to the gym, or write a term paper, the term paper always won.
Then the other day, I was at work and was having a pleasant conversation with a very pleasant co-worker. And in the back of my mind I thought "Man, I'm really going to miss her when this clinical placement ends." Then I realized, it's not going to "end." I may leave some day or move to a new job, but that's my choice. There is no end date. Which is another way graduate school twisted my reality. I'm so used to doing things for 3 months at a time, and then moving on to something else. Life was always a mad dash to some sort of finish line.
That thought really struck a chord in my brain. These coworkers of mine are the people I am going to see everyday. They will be the ones I invite to my baby shower someday. They're the ones I make plans to see on the weekends. And due to the nature of working in healthcare, these are the people I spend most of my holidays with, too. When that thought hit me, I was kind of mortified. If I'm the overweight, greasy faced girl who always sticks her hair in a messy bun at work, then that basically becomes who I am in life. Things have to change.
When I got home from work that day, I thought about my mindset and how I handled my time and I realized mentally, I am still in graduate school. When I get home from work, my first thought is to get ready for the next day at work - look up treatments I may not have known about, treatment and discharge planning, and writing and rewriting my daily treatment notes (which nobody ever even reads!). I realized I needed to change my mindset and how I was handling my time. Sure, for 3 months at a time, it was manageable to spend countless hours focused only on work. But this is real life now. There isn't going to be a magic date when all of this work stuff just goes away. At least not for the next 45-50 years.
So, I've decided to leave work at work. To remind myself that 8 hours is more than enough time in one day to spend on work. That I no longer have homework and my new "big assignment" is to take care of myself. Lose weight; find a hairstyle that really works for me and learn to style it; learn a craft; read more leisure books.
Even though being out of school initially seemed very scary (the complex emotions of which is an entirely different post. Possibly for tomorrow), it is exciting to finally be start doing the things on my "someday" to-do list and improve myself. To be healthier and happier, what more could someone want?
Yesterday, I got home from work, I left my daily notes in my car for the next day and I went to the gym. I gave myself a facial and I read a book I have been dying to read for over a year. I think I'm going to like the real world....
TL:DR College/graduate school may prepare you for a career, but it hardly prepares you for the real world.
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