Spring, my ass...

There is northwest winter weather outside my window.  I know what the calendar says; here, in my drippy world, it is still winter.  Today it snowed and rained and the wind blew sideways.  I know this because I can almost see outside from the bowels of the hospital, which is where they keep PACU (recovery).  Face it, the customers are too loaded to enjoy the view, so why waste windows and light on employees?

I work in a new hospital, huge and lovely.  And huge.  I walk over a quarter mile from my truck to my unit.  In the rain, mostly. Or the snow.  Mostly the rain.  The building has it's own weather system around it.  The wind gusts around and through the various architectural features, the ground remains frozen in it's shadow, and the rain comes from all angles.  The end result is that I am cold, wet, wind swept and cranky by the time I get to the locker room to change into scrubs.  Expected to heal and nurture when I feel like burning and pillaging.  It's hard to be kind and caring when your shoes squish.

I am so ready for spring.  I am tired of the cold and rain.  I long to dig my fingers into warm dry soil, to feel the sun on my bare shoulders.  I yearn for blue sky, something very rare here from October to April.  I want to go for a walk and not have five pounds of mud on each shoe at the end of it.  I want to sit by a fire in the backyard as the sun sets. I want a day without thick gloves.  I get enough of gloves at work.

I'm done with, over, tired of, and way sick of  winter.  As I take stock of my numb white fingers (from Reynaud's disease), my runny nose (a constant in the winter, though I'm not sick), toes that have no feeling, hair that is frizzy (I should wear a sign:  'I combed it this morning!'), muddy clunky boots and eyes squinting against the aerosol rain, I feel cranky.  Cold, stiff and cranky.  And, not a little guilty as I slog past the dialysis clinic.