A year ago today I started a new job. After ten years at the same job, it was time to make a change. I loved what I was doing, but the stress of the job and politics involved were having a major impact on my health.

Now a year later, I am not working as a registered nurse, but instead I’m a stay at home wife, mom, and Nana.

I learned a lot in the nine months I was at that office job. I went into the job full of excitement and ideas of how I could be the best women’s health nurse I could be.

The love quickly turned to disillusionment . The hospital system, which I had worked for in 2000, had been taken over by a new system. The excellent insurance I had back then was now the worst insurance I have ever had – by far! We paid a huge amount out of pocket. At this writing, there is no doubt that we paid a heck of a lot more into it than we got out of it.

This job, too, had office politics – but I don’t know a job that doesn’t. I met some very kind people, though, and for that I am grateful.

Overall, it was a heart breaking experience. I left with more than two weeks notice – the health system sent me a cobra note saying I was involuntarily terminated. Considering their HR was in a state far away, I could see the mistake being made, and I got it corrected.

It wasn’t the health system I had worked at and loved.

I don’t regret leaving – I am busy with life, writing, speaking, and healing. I’m savoring the time with my spouse.

It is yet to be seen if the chapter of being a nurse is closed. It feels like it to me, and I’m okay with that. Financially we don’t need two incomes, and that is a blessing.

It’s just bittersweet to look back on the myself a year ago today, so excited, so ready for a new job at a place I had loved to work at.

Little did I know that ship had sailed, swallowed up by a big, anonymous healthcare system that forgot its roots of serving the community, and valuing its employees.

Bittersweet, indeed.