“The Job” is seven minutes away from my front door, yet it feels worlds away. Seven minutes. Five miles.
I’m settling in to my new routine, physical therapy, a little of this and that, just living a day at a time. It’s been a long time coming, “The Job” has a way of wrapping you inside, making you somebody you really are not. If I had a chrystal ball eighteen years ago and peered inside, the person I have become would shock me. I might even smash the chrystal ball in a thousand pieces, shattering it against a wall and never looking again.
People change. It is the normal, healthy course of life, growth, understanding, spirituality. Relationships blossom, or wilt and die, all in such slow incriments it is impossible to see the changes as they happen.
This injury has given me a lot of time to think. It took a few weeks for me to come down from the adreneline rush that is Rescuing Providence. The nature of the job, the power it instills into us, the isolation, hopelessness and anger seep in, changing us, altering our outlook. Knowledge is power I once heard somebody say, but it also makes you powerless. The more I know, the more I see, the more I want to crawl into my home, lock the doors and never leave. It’s a cruel world out there, one that will destroy you if you let it.
Rescue 1 responded to a call yesterday, a teenageed pregnant mother shot to death at three in the afternoon by her “boyfriend.” I should have been working. I’m happy I was at home. At one time I wanted to be wherever the chaos was greatest, to test my skills, to do some good. Now that I’ve come down from all that, I honestly don’t know.
That’s the thing: you go, go, go and never have the chance to “really” think about life, and all that’s going on around you. It’s the moments when we are made to stop, that we have the chance to process all of it. Just be good to yourself during this healing phase, and take it easy. Get well and heal.
You’ve focused on other people for a long time now.
Focus on yourself for a while.
Get some rest, heal, think about things.
The desire to be in the middle of it all will come back with time… or it won’t, and you’ll find something else you want to do.
Also realize that to at least some extent, you’re coming down off a long adrenaline high. You’re bound to need to readjust physically and mentally. Some withdrawal is not unexpected, and that can manifest in a lot of different ways.
It’s always good to be outside the box for a time, albeit not while injured.
Take your time coming back. Take care of yourself first.
Thanks for the encouragement, Chrysalis, Hilinda and Herbie, much appreciated. I read my own posts a day after I write them and can’t believe what a little baby I can be, but I write what I feel at the time and it’s good that I do, I have a strange ability to bury things and just move on, but then I think most of us do the same.
Mike,
Its all part of the roller coaster of rescue. Time off is sometimes the only thing that can keep a person in rescue. The sad part is you have to be physically hurt to get it. Not just mentally hurt or fried. Take the time, heal well and if you need to talk give me a call and we can get a coffee.
JoeEMT799
I’m just grateful there are people like you who choose these types of careers for the rest of us.