As a young girl, I dreamed of working in labor and delivery. That dream was deeply personal: my aunt spent 26 years in a coma after developing eclampsia during childbirth. I wanted to be there for women and families during the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
That dream led me to nursing. I knew if I worked hard enough, I could build a career around helping people. What I didn’t expect was how challenging it could be to build a life outside of work.
For a long time, I felt I had to choose between financial stability and personal freedom. I could grind through back-to-back shifts and never see my friends or family, or try to reclaim my time and risk falling behind professionally. I didn’t want to choose.
Eventually, I realized I didn’t have to. Now, at 28, I'm working as a nurse and am in school to become a nurse practitioner (NP). The best part? I figured out a way to do it all myself while having the financial freedom to actually enjoy life in my 20s.
I’ve been a nurse for six years, including five as a travel nurse. Traveling allowed me a certain level of freedom; I was nursing in New York City at the height of the pandemic, took a contract in Tucson for the clear desert air, and have been everywhere in between. Like most travel nurses, there were aspects that drew me to traveling – aspects I loved, like the pay and the excitement of finding my way in a new place – but it didn’t give me the personal flexibility or professional fulfillment I really needed.
When I enrolled in my NP program in Kentucky, my days as a traveling nurse were over. I had to find a way to juggle clinical hours, coursework, and real-life responsibilities, all while still earning a living.
That’s when I turned to per diem nursing.
For the past year, I’ve been using an on-demand nursing app to choose when and where I pick up shifts. I have total autonomy with my schedule; I can stack shifts to open up time for school, or slow things down when life outside of work needs my attention. When a family member passed away recently, I didn’t have to ask anyone for time off. I just took it. I flew to the Caribbean to be with my loved ones – no explanations needed.
That level of independence and freedom has changed everything for me. Per diem nursing lets me earn a living, stay close to the bedside, and move forward in my career without burning out or struggling to pay bills. It’s how I pay for school, furnish my apartment, and still have money left over for the things that bring me joy: Pilates classes, cooking lessons, travel, nights out with friends.
This flexibility didn’t just change my schedule. It changed my mindset. For so long, I treated rest like a luxury I had to earn. Now, I see it as a requirement for showing up fully – for my patients, my studies, and myself.
I wish I’d known about this path sooner. It’s good for individual nurses, but it’s great for the profession. Hospitals are short-staffed. Burnout among my colleagues is high. Per diem nurses help fill critical gaps without adding more pressure to already overwhelmed full-time teams. It’s a win-win: better support for facilities, and more flexibility for nurses like me.
If you had told the 10-year-old me that I’d one day find a career that let me care for others and care for myself, I would’ve been ecstatic. But if you’d told 22-year-old me? I probably wouldn’t have believed you.
I’ve come to believe that this is what a healthy relationship with work should look like: sustainable, yet still fulfilling. It’s a relationship that puts you in the driver’s seat and in control of your own destiny. As our society grows increasingly fatigued with hustle culture, I have hope that this way of life will soon catch on.
