Walking out the door

They all tell me here that I am supposed to be ecstatic about working my last nursing shift. Everyone wants to know if I have another job lined up in England or if I am going to pop babies out. I find it curious to hear that there are only 2 options. It is actually a little sad to pull my name off the wall to the office I almost never got a chance to use. I went around emptying my locker and taking down my picture from the staff list and felt myself leaving. It is a bit harder than I expected to leave the place where I have spent 1/2 of my time for the last three years. I am the expert here and once I leave, I will no longer have that career to identify myself with. The truth is I do not have a job in sight, but really hope that I find a little job that will give me all the vacation time that we already have booked. I am looking at plane tickets to Germany in my spare time and start to think about the next life phase. What should I call it? If I was 40, I would call it a mid-life crisis or 20 then I could say that I am a student studying abroad (even though I would hardly study in a foreign country). We get to indulge and grab this fantastic adventure when we are in our best days and not too immature, too old, or bogged down with kids to embrace everything. Now I am smiling. We are the lucky few.