Nurse Junkie

I wanted to hate her but...

I wanted to hate Nurse Jackie, really I did.

Who's nurse Jackie you ask? She's TV's latest venture into yet another dysfunctional woman; a bad example for young girls everywhere. And worse, another sorry excuse for a nurse. If nurses aren't running around in short white dresses with white stiletto fuck-me pumps on, then what? They're running around with hair cropped way too short, snorting all sorts of pain pills while caring for critically ill emergency room patients. Except of course when they're dining out at very expensive restaurants with doctors who actually like them, while in their spare time screwing the pharmacist behind their husband's back.

Please.

Like I said, I really wanted to hate Nurse Jackie.

This isn't reality, it's fantasy. I should know, I spend twelve hours a day caring for critically ill people in an environment that's not amenable to expensive lunches - left over sandwiches is what we get if we're lucky. And the doctors? Don't even get me started; a bunch of pompous wind bags that would rather see you choke than take an interest in anything you might have to say; that's reality! Even if I had the time to get a thirty minute lunch break to go have sex with someone, the pharmacist would be the absolute last person on my list. But I don't get the time to have sex, or eat lunch. I barely get the time to go take a piss most days, so yes, once again, I really wanted to hate Nurse Jackie.

So when I saw the trailers for the show, I was ready. I had my dander up. I had it all set in my head how I was going to write this scathing piece on what a bad example Nurse Jackie was and how society needs to rectify its role models- blah, blah, blah. But then I watched the show.

Now, I'm a big ‘Sopranos' fan, so of course I like Eddie Falco, the actor who plays Nurse Jackie, but Mrs. Soprano as a hardened big city ER nurse? Come on. But wait, she's pretty good, convincing, and dare I say, relatable?  When her thirty minutes was up I sat quietly. I didn't know what to think at first. I liked the show, I laughed in all the right places. I sensed something familiar. Why wasn't I hating Nurse Jackie?

The answer was simple. Nurse Jackie was complicated, interesting, and someone you might know in real life. Not the goody-two-shoes kind of gal that gets on your nerves, but the kind of bad ass you want to be friends with; partly because she's cool, partly because you're scared of her.

I know a ton of goody-goody nurses, and they're boring. I couldn't imagine spending thirty minutes watching a day in the life of any of them. I also know nurses like Jackie, with real problems; drug addiction, family issues. These are the people I'm curious about. These are the people that force conversation around the water cooler. They might not be the best people, and they're certainly no role models, but they're real people.

Life isn't about sugar coating what you don't want to hear or see; it's a struggle. Doing the right thing is a challenge. Watching other people go through it is a comforting reminder that we're not alone.

So as much as I wanted to hate Nurse Jackie, I don't. Her sarcastic wit resonates with my sense of humor, her disdain of red tape and self-driven (if not dangerous) solutions to those problems brings out the rebel in me. Her prissy young nursing student reminds me why the show would never work if it were about a nurse who did everything right, while at the same time it takes me back to my own student days when I took being naïve for granted. She is no role model, because no one wants to waste thirty minutes drooling on themselves with boredom watching one.

In fact, I like Nurse Jackie a great deal, and I'm entertained by her. She's probably not the type of woman I would ever become best friends with, but I wouldn't mind catching a beer with her at the end of a long hard shift.