hi, i'm twelve years old and i'll be your nurse today.

i realize that i look much younger than i am. i do. and yes, i know that i'll appreciate it when i'm older. okay, that's great but that's no excuse to be rude. honestly. i have got SOOOO many comments at the hospital about how young i look and i really don't care to hear another one. i don't know why but it is especially bad it this hospital that i'm at right now. and it's not just, "oh hey you look quite young to be a student nurse." no, i get strangers walk up to me and, out of the blue, tell me that i look really young. "oh... well, ya, i get that a lot." "no really... you look young. REALLY young." "okay." (at this point i usually stop talking and try to ignore them because i haven't discovered a good - polite - response yet). "really, you must be older than you look because you must have graduated from high school to be in nursing." (i don't tell them that i've been to 3 post-secondary educational institutions. and this is when they realize that i don't care for what they're saying and try to fix it or something.) "well, you'll appreciate that when you're older." ya, when i'm old and wrinkled like you, i want to say.

sometimes they don't say this to me, but to the other nurse standing with me, "doesn't this little one look so young? wow, i can't believe that she's a student nurse." i just smiled a fake smile and carried on with my charting. oh, but she wasn't done. "oh yes, you look sooooooooooooo young! you don't even belong here!" excuse me? really? well, you look a little bit too old to be still working here....

three weeks ago i had a patient's visitor go on about how young i look. after my usual fake smile and a "oh ya.... um, okay," i got this. (no joke) "no, really. you look like you're only twelve years old. you can't be much older than that." are you serious? have you SEEN a twelve year old lately? i could almost be the mother of a twelve year old. well, theoretically... okay that's just weird. alright.... here's how i looked when i was twelve.

and this is me now. [okay, this is me now looking glamorous. i think i've posted this picture before but i really wanted to contrast this with the most freaky twelve-year-old picture of me that i could find].

and to top off this particular story, the following week, that visitor was back and her daughter was with her. i recognized her daughter from day camp last summer, and she told me that she'll be coming to jr. high week this summer.... meaning that she's 12 years old!!!

i've been told that i look 14, that i look 15. really. and it's not the elderly people or the confused patients. it's the 40 and 50 year olds. so now i am open to suggestions... how do i respond to this? i've tried all sorts of polite answers. i've discovered the reason why this bothers me too and i told it to one woman who thought it was her duty to drill into my head that i looked much too young to be a nurse. "well, as long as my patients trust me and that I know what i'm doing." if my patients really think that i'm a preteen, that i "don't belong here," will they trust me as their nurse? i try to ignore this concern in my mind, but it does begin to gnaw away at my confidence - something that most student nurses have a tough time with anyways.

so ya. i look young. and you're jealous. i'll take that as a compliment.
and i hope i don't look as old as you when i'm 45.