It’s been hard to write. But I put this down on another social media site, and thought I would share it here. We are not just nurse-robots that come to work. We are whole people, carrying other burdens on our shoulders from our personal lives, trying to show up the best we can for our patients and families. We made it through COVID. But here in April 2025, we find ourselves living and working in a whole different set of challenges that will take us probably our entire lifetime to sort through.

I don’t have big answers or big inspiration. I do have a lot of empathy, so if you can relate, here’s my story and a bit of stubborn hope nonetheless.

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With the ushering of warmer spring weather, we recently had some subterranean termite swarms rudely invade my favorite room of the house – the guest room that I’ve turned into my she-cave, where I go to read, to rest, to light candles in the dark when my head is splitting from a long day.

The swarms that appeared out of nowhere (literally they showed up in dozens in ONE split second while I was on a work call) were the invasive, in-your-face sign of what we already knew. That termites lived in the area, underground, and were likely slowly creeping into the shadows of our living spaces over time.

Twice over Spring Break, they swarmed in such a way that the room was full of about 30 termites… and so I’d vacuum or pluck up everything I saw in the room, only to look back at where I started and see that more termites had appeared from God knows where. This would go on for 2-3 hours. Clean, look around, and re-clean. Clean, look around, and re-clean.

They were SO insidious. I was so unwell.

I was unwell because they were the perfect terrible analogy of current politics in our country.

Seemingly overnight, something destructive, insidious, invasive, has shown itself from the shadows.

Shown that it was already creeping and multiplying in increasing rumbles, shown that it was already eating away at the walls of where and how we live,

and when we might think that one series of creepy things has perhaps passed for the moment, we turn and see more continuing to appear.

There’s a whole different kind of perplexity, vulnerability, threatened sense of doom that comes with termites.

For various reasons, we can’t tent our whole house right now, but in the last couple days, we did get some really thorough local treatment and soil treatment to try and at least beat these guys back for the time being.

Tonight, I feel a weary kind of exhale. A moment to be grateful for those whose work it is to rid my home of the insidious, destructive things. A moment to be grateful for what spaces and people and things I do have to enjoy. A moment to consider how we can build our home stronger, and cultivate pockets of beauty.

I’ve never wanted simple beauty in my home more than I do now. It’s a way of fighting back at the feeling that I have no agency over where and how I live.

I want sweeter moments with my kids and husband.

I want more quality interactions with friends.

I want to be a really, really good nurse. Full of empathy and truth and integrity and diligence and sacrifice.

I want to love the Lord my God with all my mind, heart and soul. To live a spiritual life that shows off the truth and beauty of God’s goodness and love, that doesn’t make people shake their head in cynicism at my hypocrisy.

I have never wanted goodness and beauty and wholeness in the spaces where we Iive and work and play and rest, more than I do now.