I guess this is stupid but I’ve been sitting here at the kitchen table since midnight just looking at my hands and thinking about how they don’t look like nurse hands because they’re still stained with that industrial grease that never really comes out from under the nails no matter how much you scrub. It’s not a big deal but I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail out of this program and lose every dime I’ve sunk into these night classes because my brain just feels like an old engine that’s seized up and won’t turn over anymore. I’m forty-two years old and I’m sitting in a room with these twenty-two year olds who look at me like I’m some kind of ancient relic or a project they need to be nice to while they talk about stuff that sounds like a foreign language. Like today we were talking about metabolic acidosis and the instructor—this lady who can’t be more than thirty—is just rattling off numbers and pH levels like it’s common sense and I’m sitting there nodding my head like a damn fool. I worked a twelve hour shift at the plant before coming to class and my boots were still heavy on my feet and I could smell the ozone and the metal shavings on my skin and I just felt so SMALL. It’s funny because I’m a big guy and I’ve handled myself fine for two decades on the floor but trying to understand how a kidney balances out the blood is making me want to hide in the bathroom. I haven't taken a test since the Clinton administration and back then I barely scraped by with Cs so I don't know why I thought I could suddenly become some kind of academic. I spent twenty years doing what I was told and moving parts from point A to point B and now I’m trying to reinvent the wheel because the rent in this city is CRAZY and they’re talking about cutting the second shift at the factory next year anyway. My friend Marcus tells me I’m being too hard on myself and that I’m one of the smartest guys he knows but he doesn't see me when I'm alone and the letters on the page start swimming around. He’s out there making bank doing real estate and he doesn’t get that my brain just stopped taking in new information somewhere around 2004 and now I’m just trying to force-feed it like a stubborn kid who won’t eat his greens. I was at the hospital for my clinical rotation last week and the head nurse asked me to check the IV drip rate and I swear my mind went COMPLETELY blank like a TV station that just lost its signal. I stood there looking at the bag and the tubing and the patient—this sweet old lady who reminded me of my aunt—and I couldn't remember the math. I had the formula in my head ten minutes before but it just evaporated and I had to pretend I was checking the chart so I could pull out my phone and look it up without her seeing me shake. It’s pathetic really because I’m supposed to be the one people rely on and here I am googling basic stuff while my heart is thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird. My wife thinks I’m going to be this great success story and she’s already talking about us taking a trip when I pass the NCLEX but every time she mentions it I feel this weird hollow space opening up in my chest. It doesn’t even hurt anymore which is the scary part it’s just this flat realization that I’m a fraud who’s about to get caught out in the open. I look at the pile of flashcards on the floor and they just look like TRASH to me because I can memorize the words but I don’t FEEL the knowledge actually sticking to my bones. It’s like I’m trying to paint a house while the rain is washing it all away as fast as I can apply the brush. People in the city always talk about getting ahead and how you have to keep moving to survive but nobody tells you what happens when you run out of gas in the middle of the highway at 2am. I’m tired of the noise and the lights and the pressure to be something more than a guy who turns a wrench but I can’t go back and I’m terrified I can’t go forward either. Sometimes I just sit in the parking lot of the community college and watch the planes taking off from the airport nearby and I wonder where they’re all going and if anyone on those flights feels as empty as I do right now. I tried talking to the counselor at school and she used all these big words about academic transition and non-traditional students and I just wanted to tell her to shut up because she doesn't know what it's like to have your back ache so bad you can't sit straight while you're trying to learn the Krebs cycle. It’s not her fault she’s just doing her job but it feels like there’s this huge GULF between the world of books and the world of reality and I’m drowning right in the middle of it. I used to be good at things and I used to know who I was but now I’m just a guy in a set of scrubs that don’t fit right waiting for the floor to drop out from under me. This morning I was at the bodega getting a coffee and the guy behind the counter asked how the "doctor school" was going because he sees me with my books and I didn't even correct him. I just took my coffee and walked out because it was easier to let him think I’m some kind of genius than to explain that I’m actually just a middle-aged factory worker who’s probably going to fail a test on basic anatomy in three hours. It’s a stupid thing to lie about by omission but I guess I’m just desperate for someone to look at me and see something other than a dead end. The lighting in this kitchen is terrible it makes everything look yellow and sick and I can hear the refrigerator humming and it’s the loudest thing in the world.