Babbling About: Life Be LIFE-ING

#232: Life can flip the script in a single week, and sometimes it feels like your house, your job, your relationships, and your inner world all decide to develop plot twists at the same time. We are talking candidly about what that season looks like when you are doing your best, still getting humbled daily, and trying not to spiral into fixer mode. 

We start with the chaos of homeownership: the stuff no one warns you about like endless questions of “is this normal or is this a problem?” The biggest practical takeaway is one we are learning the hard way: document everything. Photos, texts, invoices, timelines and anything in writing can save you time, money, and sanity when you have to advocate for yourself. From there, we shift into career updates, including stepping back into the emergency room PRN, the parts of being a nurse practitioner we genuinely love, and the admin grind that can make healthcare feel heavier than it should. 

Then we go deeper on relationships and boundaries. We unpack the difference between understanding someone’s perspective and abandoning your own, why it is exhausting to keep explaining your feelings, and how compatibility can be the real issue even when no one is “the villain.” We also share what faith looks like when you do not have clear answers yet, including slowing down to study the Bible with more context and learning to sit with God in the unknown. 

If this resonates, share it with a friend who is in their own “life is lifing” season, and make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what lesson you are learning right now.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Quick Catch Up And Real Life

Johnna 0:00

What is up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Baffles Nonsense. I was like, wait a minute, what is my podcast called? Y'all, it's been that kind of week. This week, I thought about doing a clinical topic about the antibiotics, but honestly, since life has truly been lifing lately, I figured we would just catch up because I have approximately 97 life updates. You're gonna get about 94 of them. The other three are currently between me, God, and my notes app on my phone, probably Chat GPT too. And if you know me personally, don't text me asking what the other three are because if you're supposed to know, you'll know. Okay, so let's just get started.

Homeownership Lessons You Never Asked For

Johnna 1:13

First of all, apparently owning a home means earning an honorary degree in things you never asked to know about. At this point, I know entirely too much about caulking, windows, moisture, mold, drainage, irrigation systems, and what various construction materials should and should not look like when building a home. And here's something adulthood has also taught me with all of these life experiences. Start documenting everything. Even if you don't think you need to, document everything. Take the pictures, save the text, keep the invoices, get things in writing because there is nothing quite like standing in your own house thinking, I know I'm not crazy, this does not look right. I've also learned that sometimes you have to advocate for yourself in situations where you really shouldn't have to advocate that hard. And sometimes I feel like it's because I'm a woman and a single woman at that. I mean, obviously, I don't know that to be true. I just sometimes feel that way because I haven't ever really had one of my single guy friends or even my friends that are married to men have this much trouble when they're dealing with things on their house or they need something fixed or whatever. But probably healthcare has made me really worse about this because in my brain, it immediately goes into chart review mode. Like if you didn't chart it, it didn't happen. So I'm like, okay, that's how I'm thinking about everything in my life with this house. So it's like, was that supposed to happen? What actually happened? What is the timeline? Where is the documentation? Where are the receipts? Apparently, I know now perform chart audits on my house. But since I can't really get into the nitty-gritty of all that, I just want to leave that there and just say, yeah.

Work Changes And Returning To The ER

Johnna 2:57

And then with work, work is also changing. There are some professional things happening that I'm super excited about, but I'm not going to talk too much about them until everything is super finalized, which it's almost there. I know I've mentioned it on maybe I don't know if I've mentioned it on past podcast, but I'm taking a very PRN job back in the ER, but it's at Crestwood this time. Um, it's been what five years since I've been in the ER, five or six years. So I'm kind of nervous, but also excited because I really love emergency room medicine and it's a different type of learning environment. So I'm excited. Um, but one thing I have realized lately is that I do genuinely love being a nurse practitioner. It can be super frustrating at times, but it can also be very rewarding, especially with my geriatric patients. Now, do I love every part of healthcare? Absolutely not, because some days I think half of being an NP is practicing medicine, and the other half is just doing all the administrative work, like calling pharmacies, answering messages, filling out paperwork, arguing with insurance companies, and trying to figure out why somebody ordered a urinalysis on an 87-year-old patient that had no symptoms and no one can tell me why it was ordered. And I'm trying to figure out the results or how to chart it and how to document it. Because again, going back to problem number one, documentation is everything, especially in medicine. But I do genuinely love taking care of people and I'm still figuring out what I want the next chapter of my career to look like. I think we're allowed to do that. I think that we can be grateful for where we are and still want something different. I think that you can change career paths at any time. You don't have to have one career path and be like, okay, this is what I'm on, or even change like it's not topics, but like scenery within that same career path. Like some people don't want to do bedside nursing anymore. They want to go to telehealth or they want to do something online, and that is okay. That's the beauty of healthcare is that there are so many different avenues to swap into. Like when you're getting a little burned out, you can swap into something else and then go back to something else that you genuinely love. And I love that.

Empathy Without Losing Yourself

Johnna 5:07

But something I've also been thinking about, I've been doing a lot of thinking about relationships, which y'all know I talk about relationships on this podcast a lot, and I'm going to leave the word quote unquote relationships broad intentionally because this can apply to friendships, family, dating, work, really anywhere. I say that every time I talk about relationships on podcasts because it's not just romantic. And I think when we hear the just terminology of relationships, we automatically assume romantic relationships. I've just realized there is a difference between understanding someone's perspective and then also abandoning your own. Sorry, abandoning. I just I talk really fast, which is weird because I know a lot of people are like, you talk really fast, but you have country accents. So hope y'all can keep up. But I'm just really good at trying to understand people. Like, why did they react that way? Maybe they're stressed, maybe they're busy, maybe this is just how they communicate, maybe they didn't mean it that way. And I do think that having empathy for someone else is good is a good thing to try to understand someone else's perspective. But I do, and I'm I'm going to therapy this week, and I'm going to talk about this because it's just one of those things that I'm starting to realize. I do think there comes a point where constantly explaining someone else's behavior can cause you to stop paying attention to how that behavior is actually affecting you. And two things can always be true at the same time. Someone can have completely valid reasons for being the way they are, responding the way they are, acting the way they are, and that relationship can still not work for you. And that's okay, but it can also be painful because sometimes when it is a romantic relationship and you do love someone else, but it's just you're not getting what you need out of that relationship, it can be painful because you're already kind of in pain in that relationship trying to get what your need or your needs met, but then also it can be painful to end something when you genuinely care about someone. Nobody is necessarily the villain in the story, and I think that's something I'm learning more as I get older, that it's okay to just accept how you feel about something and also understand and accept that it can be painful to realize that. And then you can both be right. Everyone's perception is truly their reality. And we've had conversations on this podcast before where, you know, we talked about like the lenses you see through and the the childhood traumas and all your past experiences that build the perception that you have. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to understand someone else's perspective because at the end of the day, they uh like the saying goes, there's your side, my side, and the truth. And it's always a little bit of your perception, my perception that gets intertwined. Um, I try my best to keep to the facts in it, but obviously when it's a personal situation, emotions can kind of run rampant. Um but yeah, I just think that that's something I'm learning and I'm gonna speak about in therapy. So maybe it'll be another podcast on this topic. Who knows? Um, but you shouldn't have to present a dissertation on your feelings when it comes to your perception and things like that. Um that's another thing I've been thinking about is how exhausting it is when you feel like you have to explain yourself over and over again to be understood. And that could be anyone. I've I've had, you know, romantic relationships this way, I've had friendships this way, I've had work relationships this way. Um because I feel like you can explain it one way and then they don't get it. Like, so you try another way and then you soften it because maybe your delivery was was the problem. And I know that used to be a big problem with me in the past is I had to work on my delivery because sometimes I do need to soften my tone so that it's perceived well. And so now I think I've kind of flipped from being too harsh to sometimes soften it, softening my response too much because I'll, you know, rewrite text over and over and over and over trying to be like, okay, I need this to land. I know sometimes I can sound harsh, so how can I soften this? And it's just sometimes it can be exhausting, but then you have to add context to it. Then you make sure you're acknowledged, acknowledging their perspective. Then somehow, after all of that, changing things, softening things, adding context, acknowledging their perspective, you've ended up writing a 14-paragraph text message with an introduction, supporting evidence, citations, and a conclusion just to get your point across. And you're sitting there proofreading it like, okay, sure, this version adequately explains that my feelings were hurt. But at some point, maybe the problem isn't that you haven't explained yourself well enough because sometimes people just simply cannot give you what you're asking for. And accepting that doesn't mean that they're a horrible person or that you can't explain well enough. It goes back to what I just said a minute ago where I was saying, like, sometimes it's just compatibility. Sometimes it's like you have to accept that you really care about a person, but if people aren't willing to change and compromise so that you can make it work, then it's a compatibility issue at that point. And it also doesn't mean that the person is asking for too much. It might simply just mean that you're asking the wrong person to give you what you need. And wow, that can be a hard life lesson to learn. It can bring on tears and pain. But I think once you learn it and you do stop self-abandoning yourself and just accept who you are and accept that people unfortunately are not meant to be in a forever season in your life. That's what that's what my aunt tells me a lot is like some people are just here for seasons, and then some people are forever people, and that's okay.

Bible Study And Faith In The Unknown

Johnna 11:10

But I've also been spending a lot more time in my Bible lately. I know I've talked about this on the podcast. Um, I've been reading books that I think a lot of us tend to skim through because we're like, okay, Lord, that's a lot of laws. So right now, me and my friend are going through the Old Testament, which is hard. Um, it really is hard to go through it because it's like, okay, well, the New Testament's where Jesus came and kind of covered all those civil laws and ceremonial laws and things like that. But it's just it's it's important to read, to understand, like and to be grateful that we don't have to go through those ceremonial laws. And we're looking at you, Leviticus. But um, slowing down and actually studying the historical context, you know, like looking words up or comparing scripture, I am truly getting more out of it, and it's making more sense because we read the New Testament first. Well, last year we read the Old Testament and the New Testament. We were trying to do the Bible um in 365 days, and we're gonna try to do that repetitively and um just see what we missed and what we learned and what new experiences we've got out of it. And I do think that um we got some advice from Christian TikTok to read the New Testament first and then go back and read the Old Testament because a lot of the Old Testament is foreshadowing Jesus. And so now that we've done that, you can kind of pick up on a lot of those things. And I think it I think it's kind of cool. And one thing I do think um I've been reminded of is that faith isn't only something you turn to when life makes sense. Um, sometimes faith is sitting with God when you don't have an answer yet. Sometimes it's saying, I don't know what you're doing here, I don't know what I'm supposed to learn from this, but I am here, and that's probably where I am with a few things in my life right now. You know, we all go through life thinking that we would always do something a certain way until life happens. And then we have to, you know, make the best decisions that we can because we all have free will. But that doesn't mean that, you know, we can't pray about it and we can't have faith in it. Um, you know, we are all called to action and things like that, but I think God's timing is always right. And even though we do have free will and we can make choices, sometimes we might make the wrong choice, but we're always gonna end up where we were supposed to be at the end of the day. It just may be a longer route to that. Um, and I had a friend recently talk to me about someone who was confiding in her, like she used to go to church and then she quit because some bad things happened to her. Um, and my friend did really well with talking to her about that because sometimes we do think that. Sometimes we're like, why did these bad things happen? Like, why did God let why does God let bad things happen? And it always brings me back to the book of Job because it's probably one of my favorite books that we've read, just because it does talk about how there's so many intricate, intricate, why can't I say that word, things that happen in our lives that we're not prevy to? Like maybe it's our actions and reactions and consequences, maybe it's someone directly tied to us, and it's not necessarily God's just allowing bad things to happen to you, it's kind of the sequence of events that have to happen to get someone where they're supposed to go, and it's all timing. And that is what I believe. I mean, you don't have to believe that listening, but that is what I have to believe because it just gives me hope and faith. And yeah, that's my spiel on that for the day.

Learning To Stop Fixing Everything

Johnna 14:38

Um, but I think the biggest thing that I'm learning is the theme of this season for me is learning that I don't have to solve everything immediately. I always want to have everything kind of tied in a bow, you know, whether that be like, for example, clean the house, do your work, and then sit down at the end of the night and just relax. I'm just realizing that you don't have to do all those things or have everything solved before you learn something, which is hilarious because I am absolutely a fixer. Like if you give me a problem, I'm already researching it. I'm probably making a spreadsheet about it, calling someone, ordering something from Amazon, developing a backup plan, you know, all the things. Like I'm just trying to learn something of it because I I try to fix it. But not everything can be fixed that way. And sometimes it's just sitting with people. And some things do require time, some things require boundaries, some things require accepting that someone has shown you instead of continuing to wait for them to explain it differently. And some things require prayer and being quiet long enough to figure out what it is that you actually want, not what everyone else wants for you or thinks that you should do. And that can be very difficult, especially when you're someone who's accustomed to like being responsible or making all the decisions in your own life and taking care of other people, like being in healthcare and trying to always figure everything out. But yeah, anyways, um, that is as deep as we're getting today because again, you're getting 94 of those 97 problems, and I know I didn't go too in depth with them.

Plot Twists Support Systems And Goodbye

Johnna 16:15

I wanted to keep this pretty short, but really it's just that my house is still testing my Christianity, my career is evolving. I'm learning some things about relationships that apparently took me almost four decades to figure out. Um I'm reading the Old Testament voluntarily. Um, so clearly things are happening over here, but I'm okay. I'm learning, I'm figuring things out, and maybe that's enough for right now. If you're also in one of those seasons where it feels like approximately 12 areas of your life decided to develop a plot twist simultaneously, you're definitely not alone. We all go through it. Hold on tight to those close people in your life that give you the support. That's another thing that I'm learning right now. Like I used to, I mean, I'm always going to be a people pleaser, but I think that it's lessening now. Um, the the harder life lessons that we go through in life, you just learn different things and you get this support system in this village and you really realize like how much that matters. But we'll get back into the medicine and probably that antibic podcast I told y'all I was going to talk about on last week's episode and all the MP chaos sometime in the future. I can't tell you when. I don't ever plan these things out because as y'all can tell, my life has been lifing lately, and everything, every time I think I have a plan, life just throws me a different one. But until then, don't forget to document everything. And I'll try to talk to y'all next week. Y'all never know what this week's gonna throw me, so we'll see. But until next time, guys, bye, I don't know.