a year off

When I started chaplain school, in the summer of 2009, every thing was radically different.  I was totally immersed in a hard core medical environment 5-7 days a week.  I was learning new skills and a new charting system.  I had experiences I had never dreamed of.  And I was in all of this with three other interns.  Cathee, Vicki and Nathan.  Sink or swim, do or die -We became friends pretty fast.

Each of us had an adjoining desk facing the wall in our little office.  But when we got back from the emergency department or surgery or visits we would wheel our chairs around to face each other.  We were eager to share the horrendous, exciting, triumphant or soul crushing experience we had just been a part of.

Nathan and Vicki were already bloggers.  They got me set up and we wrote our encounters down,  capturing, processing, learning and memorializing the amazing times we'd been a part of.  We would read each other's blogs day.  We'd laugh and cry hearing the stories again and rush to comment encouragement and appreciation on the blogs.

We had time to blog.  We had support.  We had the material.  It just poured out of us onto the pages. Close to 200 posts for me that first year.  Stories I am so glad I have to look back at and remind me of that time.

At the end of our chaplain residency we scattered.  I became a hospice chaplain in North Carolina.  Nathan became a bereavement counselor in Alaska.  Vicki became a priest in Arizona.  Cathee worked in South Carolina.  No more wheeling the chairs around to share our moments.  We still had great stories, but less time to commit them to blogs.

And then I became an elementary school principal.  So many great stories!  But I was writing lesson plans, chaplain notes, the school news letter and website. Any ounce of creativity was put into school.  And suddenly it's been a blogless year.

Today I am looking through old posts and realizing how much I miss the processing and story telling of writing.  And even more I miss the spinning of my chair to hear my fellow interns' experiences.  So I will check in when I can and enjoy my memories where ever they are stored.