text: I suddenly awoke to the incessant screeching of my alarm clock. I laid in bed for a little bit, my eyes nearly crusted shut from deep sleep, in my darkened room wishing it wasn't that time yet. As I begrudgingly peered at my phone, I saw it was four o'clock in the afternoon. Ugh! Time to put on my fake, happy face, throw on my super plus-sized scrubs, and pull myself together enough for another night shift at work. It was my third, twelve-hour shift in a row at the nursing home. I was barely still functional as a human being at this point, let alone as a nurse. My husband and I had been married for twenty some years and managing a household with four children while we both worked full-time was impossible. But, somehow, we were pulling it off. He worked days, and I worked nights. We barely saw each other. We never spoke to each other. Throughout our entire marriage, communication has always seemed like a nuisance rather than a necessity to him. I exited my bedroom to leave for work only to find the usual. My husband sitting in a poorly lit corner of the living room glued to an obnoxiously bright computer screen playing online games. My children amassing chaos and destruction throughout the remainder of the home like a scene straight out of “ Lord of The Flies .” I had no time to intervene, or I would be late for work. Although I was exhausted and burned out from my job, most days it almost seemed like a vacation compared to the insurmountable amount of work I had to do at home. I squeaked out a quick goodbye to my family as I rushed out the front door to my car. Working in the medical field is hard. Yeah, the pay is fairly good with only two years of college to get you there. It was my best option as a young mother with a quickly growing family to keep a roof over our heads and food in my babies bellies. But, looking back now after years of grueling work as a nurse, I wouldn’t even wish for my worst enemy to have this job. It took everything in me just to get through a shift most nights. Don’t get me wrong, I adored my patients. Caring for people is a special and important calling. Nursing, however, is more focused on other things. It’s all about charting, passing pills, writing assessments, documenting intake and output, essentially very little time is actually spent with the patient. My work and family life had no balance. There was little joy left in anything I did. Depression and anxiety, especially after the loss of my mother to metastatic breast cancer, had taken over everything. I felt surrounded by death and sadness most days. But, there was one thing in my life at this point that felt special, exciting, new and invigorating. It kept me coming back again and again. My secret friend, my dangerous love, that was at work. That’s why I never missed a shift, I took extra in fact, just to be there and have more time with my fling. It was such a release! I could hardly wait most nights for our time alone. I arrived at work to even more chaos than what I had just left at home. Dementia patients in the hall screaming. Nursing assistants running frazzled up and down hallways just trying to keep up with diaper changes, feedings, and baths. The day shift nurses were glued to their medication carts still trying to finish passing out what seemed like fifty pills to each patient in the halls. We were typically assigned around twenty patients per nurse on a busy day. There were always multiple sick calls from nursing assistants, often leaving us short handed and doing the work of three people. None of this mattered to me once I found my love. We always found a time and place to sneak off together, regardless of what else was going on and keeping everyone else busy. I reached the dingy, sad break room where the day shift and night shift nurses meet for the hand off report. I sat there, distracted and daydreaming about when my lover and I would have a chance to be together, while pretending to listen to the nurse’s report. Nothing had changed from my previous shift- so and so in room 302 has been confused and digging in their depends, 304 wants another enema, 308 is being discharged tomorrow and needs patient education because I didn’t have time to do it today, etc. It would be a typical night shift. Nothing I couldn’t easily handle. I started my evening medication pass to get everyone settled for their nighttime routine and bed. While in the hallway, I caught a glimpse of my secret lover. I whispered, “Not here, not now, later.” My lover slyly slid into my pocket whilst passing by unnoticed. A little tease for later I suppose. I quickly finished the evening medications and rushed back to the nurse’s station to hurriedly get through my charting for the night. I was feeling impatient and didn’t want to wait. I’ve been overwhelmingly stressed out the past few weeks. I needed this. I needed something good, something that made me feel good. Something that made my life feel worthwhile, like I had something special to look forward to- hell, in my mind, I deserved this. I would say to myself, “What could be the harm in this? If no one finds out, no one will be hurt. You just have to be careful, be subtle, don’t get too attached.” I thought I had the whole thing under control. Me and my secret lover. It was getting into the wee hours of the night. Despite regularly working night shifts, night shift workers still get tired. Right around what we refer to as “the witching hour.” Come three a.m., everyone gets the heavy eyelids, the chins resting on the clenched fists at the desk, the ever so brief nod of the head until it flicks back up in rapid fashion and the eyes dart about to see if anyone’s watching. That was my time to sneak off to do what I’d been waiting to do all night long. I went to the wound care cart parked in the hallway near the supply closet. I slowly and quietly started checking the supplies in the drawers, removing expired or worn out items, organizing the rows, throwing out trash. The nursing assistants were busy in patient’s rooms, and the other nurse on shift was busy at the desk as she’d just now started her charting for the night. It was the perfect time for a rendezvous. I entered the supply closet and waited. I waited to see if anyone besides me and my lover might come in to avoid getting caught. The coast was clear. We were safe. There was a small corner, just behind the door to the closet, that was out of view if anyone were to enter unexpectedly. I quickly walked over to the corner and reached into the front pocket of my dark blue scrub top. I pulled out a small, folded, white, paper medication cup and opened it. I took out two, oblong, white pills peppered with tiny, light blue specks. I hastily threw the white paper cup into the trash can and popped the two pills into my mouth. I didn’t swallow them right away. I wanted to savor their bitterness. I usually chewed the sour, chalky pills before swallowing them completely because, being a nurse, I knew that the drug would hit me harder and faster if it absorbed sublingually under my tongue than it would being digested in my stomach. I crunched away at the dry tablets until they became a nasty-tasting, thick paste. Then I swallowed them down with my saliva. I didn’t even need water anymore. I instantly relaxed and just stood there for a moment in that little hidden corner in the little, sad supply closet enveloped in the love and warmth of Vicodin. My secret friend and lover. My only friend and lover. Always there for me, never judging me, loves me the way I am- fat, old, sad, disgusting - Vicodin didn’t care. Whenever I needed someone, or something, to carry me away from the darkness without hesitation or wanting something from me first, Vicodin was there for me. My confidant, or so I thought. Dangerous love is fast and furious. It doesn’t last for long. I would learn that sooner than I thought. I would learn that I had become an addict before I even knew it. Funny how it sneaks up on you like that. You get carried away in the whirlwind of the affair with your addiction. It becomes a part of you like a virus and quickly changes its genetic code to adapt to you. It tells you all the good things you want to hear about yourself. It makes you feel good. It makes you feel invincible. It makes you feel like nothing else matters and, therefore, nothing else begins to matter but the disease that’s taken you over. Addiction itself is addictive. I never understood any of it until it was too late. My dangerous love, my fiend, played me like a puppeteer moves a marionette. I take responsibility for what I did, what I’ve done. I allowed that trickster into the home of my mind, heart and soul. Especially as a nurse, I knew better. If I could take it all back, I would. This love affair took my career, my family, my relationships. It took the very essence of who I am. Through a series of life-shattering events, I was forced to end this love affair. I still work hard every day, to this day, to never return to my toxic lover. The despair and destruction it’s caused me and everyone around me has left me wondering how any of us has survived to tell the tale. I am grateful to still be alive. I am grateful to have happiness and hope back in my life today. I am grateful for the return of real, honest, true love with others, and not with a sickness that wants to kill me. For the longest time, I knew that would be the end result of my dangerous love affair- death. I knew it, and I yearned for it. I felt I had nothing else to lose. I know better now. The brush with death that this monster caused has blessed me with a new-found love and appreciation for life itself. I now know the greatest love.