A Seoul Nurse's Wednesday: Three Hours I Keep for Myself

Kim Ha-bin is a nurse at a university hospital in Seoul, in her twelfth year on the ward. Her phone is never on silent; the shift schedule taped to her refrigerator is a wash of red and green. When colleagues ask her to cover a shift, she has almost never refused — "I'm free anyway." When her family needs help with her brother's tuition, she sends the money — "I'm the big sister." When a patient's family loses its temper, she bows and apologizes — "They're frightened. I understand."

In twelve years she has looked after so many people: the old man afraid of the dark, whom she sat with through the nights; the young woman in her first round of chemotherapy, for whom she stuck a little cartoon sticker on the back of her own badge to make her smile; even the irritable doctors calmed at the sight of the warm water she brought. Everyone on the ward said the same thing: when Nurse Kim is here, you feel safe.

No one ever asked: and who makes Nurse Kim feel safe?

Her collapse was not heroic in any way. It happened on an ordinary night shift's end, at a convenience store, over a banana milk. "Heat it up?" the cashier asked. And she froze. Hot or cold? She stood in front of the refrigerator case with sweaty palms and a strangely empty head, and realized she had no idea what she liked. Since twenty-five, every "yes" and "no" in her life seemed to have been decided for somebody else.

She went to see a counselor, a woman in her fifties who spoke slowly and asked a single question at their first session: "Ms. Kim, when was the last time you did something entirely for yourself?"

She thought for a long time and could not answer.

The counselor offered no grand philosophy, only one exercise: "Pick one evening a week. Three hours that belong to you. Not useful to anyone. Three hours. Can you do that?"

She chose Wednesday, because Wednesday was the hardest shift to cover for — her colleagues were tired too, and no one found it easy to ask.

The first three hours nearly defeated her. She sat on a bench by the Han River, checking her watch, while a voice inside nagged: isn't this a waste? Shouldn't you be getting that checkup? Is the fridge empty? She stared at the water, and in the last fifteen minutes she finally allowed herself to think nothing at all — just watch the lights on the far bank come on, one by one. That night she slept her deepest sleep in eleven years.

The second Wednesday she went to a cinema alone and watched the documentary she had always wanted to see but could never find company for. The third, she ordered the army stew she had always said was "only worth it for two," ate the whole thing herself, and felt nothing improper about it. On the fourth Wednesday she took her first ukulele lesson, and her fingertips hurt so much she laughed out loud — such concrete pain was oddly steadying.

Then came the harder part: her three hours acquired competitors. Late one night a colleague messaged, asking her to cover a shift. She stared at the message for ten minutes, fingers trembling, and typed one word: "No." After sending it her heart hammered; she turned the phone face-down on the table like a schoolgirl who had done something wrong.

The sky did not fall.

The next day, the colleague found someone else. No one was angry; no one called her selfish. The world went on turning — only, from that day on, the world's roster included a person named Kim Ha-bin.

Before you are gentle with the whole world, save a chair for yourself. It isn't selfishness; it's scheduling. Your name belongs on the list of people being taken care of, too.

Six months on, she wrote in her diary on a Wednesday night: "Did nothing this evening. Watched clouds. It turns out 'wasting time' is a skill that takes practice. I'm getting better at it." She still goes to work, still notices everything, still sits up at night with the old man who fears the dark — only the taut exhaustion has gone out of her voice. One long-term patient told her, "Nurse Kim, you look recharged lately."

"I am," she said. "Wednesdays. Once a week."

The schedule on her refrigerator is still a wash of red and green. But down the middle runs one small line in her own handwriting: Wednesday evening — engaged. Engaged: the first word of a course it took her twelve years to begin.