A letter from April 6th, 2020

Dear James, Today it is 20:15, you have been living in Philadelphia for what will be the start of your 3rd month here. Corona has been taking the world by storm and luckily the situation isnt so bad yet at CHOP. You're scared, and you feel like you're definitely not ready. But 10 weeks have flown by and tonight you begin your first ever shift alone. I dont know what to expect honestly. I hope I dont get swamped and drown, caught up in doing so many things and wasting time i may not have. But its finally time, and you are now taking your first ever assignment alone. This is the beginning to a long journey as a PICU nurse. How long will i be in critical care? Only time will tell. Hopefully in one year's time, you have made a couple friends. Its pretty lonely here. With everything going on, you unfortunately can't go home to visit either which is rough. Whether you like it or not, 11PM is going to hit and you'll grab report and do the very best that you can. I hope it goes well. There will be times in the future you just want to give up. Try not to look at what you haven't done, but rather look back at how much you've achieved. Good luck; as I write this here are 10 random things off the top of my head that you can laugh about as you read one year from now: 1. Are you still playing a ton of xbox? That's all you do over here, youre pretty excited for the new one come 2020 holiday 2. You still can't cook, but congrats you are doing extremely well not going out and splurging on food. Your cooking isn't the best, but its been getting the job done; keep at it! 3. Where has your journey taken you one year from now? Are you still in Philly? Residency is set to be done in February 2021 so how was that whole experience? 4. I hope the wedding is still on. Save up, and I hope the Philippines is an amazing trip. Since then, hopefully you've been able to also visit a place or two 5. Any new clothes? Stop buying whole ass fits when you don't need to. You're not socially active enough to wear all the clothes you buy at once lol. Definitely I hope you get some new sneakers soon though. You haven't gotten a pair since 2017 minus the ultraboosts for work 6. Civic is still running as good as ever. Hopefully when work has to finally be done on it it isnt during an emergency or something. You still up to getting/have you ended up getting your quarter life crisis car? 7. Baby Kaleb is walking and hitting all those milestones. Hopefully when your life frees up and you can better balance your work-life you can spend more time with him and everyone else. 8. Stay healthy too! LA was signed up for in early March and this whole covid situation sucks because nobody can go out. Just as you were beginning to start gymming it again lol. The struggle is real you went from like 127 in January to 107 in April. 9. Still miss your girlfriend? I definitely do now lmao. With NYC on extended pause till end of April, its going to hit a month of not being able to visit or see her :(. All the highs/lows we're still around so we got this. 10. Hopefully you get to do some cool things this summer! I just read the old Bing future me and i was all for sacrificing 2018 to do this, and then 2019 I wish I went out and did more. Really should've been doing more irresponsible things cause rent sucks lmao. Its really the first day of forever so love the job you do because that's life until ya retire. With 2020 looking pretty beat so far, hopefully this all blows over. Keep doing your thing man. Eat sushi as soon as possible because its so depressing nothing is open. You deadass dream of Blue Ribbon or Rakuzen. Anyway, never forget where you started. Worst case scenario, you're young and have no debt lol. Good luck.