The gown card reads ‘what happens the day after the worst day of your life?’
Kind of a downer question but very relevant to today. As always.
I really need to start dating the post-its when I write them so I can see when this was written, and remember the details of why I wrote this. That’s a tomorrow Kate problem, although I have been dating them for, checks notes, since November of 2021.
What makes this day the worst day of your life is a valid question. There are podcasts, and Reddit forums, and Facebook posts aplenty. This can also be a rhetorical, throw down with the universe existential question. I’ve heard it referenced when someone misses out on an opportunity. Of missing the callback at an audition, at being overlooked for the big promotion. I am sure that someone said it about losing the 1.2 billion Mega Millions jackpot.
In my experience as an OR nurse, it usually refers to a death. A death of a loved one, a death of a child, a death of a patient.
Saying that a certain day when shitty things happen the worst day of your life is valid. Only you know your life and where this particular day ranks.
But happens the next day?
That is the question that the gown card was trying to prompt. What happens after you don’t get the job, or the part, or the promotion? What happens after someone dies?
Life must go on.
The bereaved have to eat, and function, and sleep. Although they cannot fathom doing so with such a new hole in their life, a new reality of their life.
Someone somewhere is looking a positive pregnancy test in a state that does not support abortion and has to figure out next steps.
Because tomorrow will come and it will no longer be the worst day of your life. It will be a new day, with new opportunities and new griefs and grievances to weigh on you. The old adage is pull yourself up by the bootstraps. This is ascribed to a piece of fiction by Rudolph Raspe where the character pulled themselves out of a swamp by their hair. A task that seemed impossible, but was overcome by the characters grit.
Tomorrow will dawn, and it will no longer be the worst day in your life. How you react will be up to you.
Not to go full Pollyanna Puke on the blog, but Annie said it best ‘the sun will come out tomorrow!’
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 