Nothing for the Pain

Me? I did nothing for the Fourth. It was excellent. I hope your's was too.

This is going to be long. But, I guess I have a lot of nonsense built up. So, hang in there.

There hasn't been A LOT going on in my life recently. Work, work, work, work, etc. And more work tomorrow!!! I need the money, the experience, the money. So, I work. But, today! I am not working. Today, I am sitting at Starbucks in Utica Square enjoying a frivolous latte and poking at the New York Times. It's supposed to be relaxing and easy and fun, but really, I am wondering when I am going to get bored. Thanks to the blogs of other, more interesting people, I haven't become bored yet, but I can feel it creeping in.

Yesterday, I sat and I watched an entire thirteen episode season of Drop Dead Diva. Why this show, I don't know. I went in looking for last season of Rookie Blue (Rookie Blue, I love you!!!), but Target couldn't be bothered to carry it, so I looked around for alternatives and happened upon DDD. Now, last year, around the time season three was supposed to be starting, I get myself caught up in DDD, and was surprised at how much I enjoyed the show. I mean, seriously, it's a show about a former model who dies and ends up in the body of a chubby, smart lawyer. So, one stereotype is pulled out of her body and thrown into the body of another and she has to discover the true meaning of beauty or whatever. Yeah, not really something I thought I would like, but it turns out I have these things called ovaries, and they make me female which in turn makes me love cliche stories about finding our "true beauty". Acknowledging that, by the way, kind of makes me want to not be female anymore. I'm so freaking girly, it's disgusting.

Anyway, I bought season three and watched the ENTIRE thing yesterday. I only stopped to A, call my mother and b, grab lunch. I sat on the couch ALL DAY. Which, okay, I haven't really done that in a while. At least a week. And, being me, that's a LONG time. I need to veg! I need to sit alone in my living room and watch frivolous television and just BE. So, I wasted a day away and, dammit, I am so pleased with myself. I feel better.

But, today, I am already getting bored with my weekend. But, I am also exhausted at the thought of going back to work tomorrow.

You see, I wish I weren't at work when I am and I wish I were at work when I am not.

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?

Maybe I don't like my job. But, I also don't like not working. I am, to put it simply, a workaholic. I want to be busy all the time, except for one or two days a week, at which point I want to be sitting on the couch doing nothing, except, maybe missing work. The key to this is to work a job that I can't get enough of. But, historically, I get about enough of it around the six-ten month mark. And then I am just dreading being there day after day for the same nonsense. When am I going to find a job I LOVE? A job that, no matter the bad, the good always outweighs it and I always want to come back to work the next day. I thought that would be this job, but reality set in and, as much as I LOVE patient care and the weird calls we get that change the tone of the day or lighten my mood, I still come to work groggy and grouchy and wondering when it's going to be over. I wonder if I just have a problem. That it's not the job at all. That it's just me. I'm the problem. So, then, what's wrong with me?

My partner, for right now, tells me I come in and am grouchy or in a bad mood two out of four shifts. I only work four shifts a week with him, but I think I am less grouchy on the days I don't work with him. NOT because of him, we like him, he is a good partner. I think it's because I get really tired of being on a truck with the SAME PERSON four days a week, twelve hours a day. It's exhausting for me. So, even a partner change--like the upcoming one, to adjust my schedule for my learning times--won't necessarily fix it. But, it can't be all about the partner. And, I don't think I am in a bad mood ALL DAY on those days I am "having a bad one". I think usually, I come out of it after a few calls. And, I think rarely, if at all, I am in a bad mood when we're ON a call. I think I get my annoyance out en route to the call, but once we're on scene, I enjoy it--even with the crazies who in no way, shape, or form needed an ambulance--that the bad mood dissolves. Usually, I think, being on scene with patients cools me down and cheers me up. So, okay, I don't HATE my job. I just hate parts of it, and being human I focus on those parts.

But, I am still in a bad mood most days of the week. And, if it isn't the patients and if it isn't my partner, then it has to be that I dread the idea of running my ass off, day after day, in a thankless environment. Most days, that's what it feels like. We run and we run and we never get a thanks or a good job or a gold star. We just run. Thing is, I know THAT'S not true either. They make us lunch, they provide us with water, they try to give us breaks when they can, they try to get us out on time and help us dodge late calls, they let us go out early for quick returns and low drop times. They do try, and I have to commend them for that, because I know a lot systems, if they were like this system, wouldn't keep up so well with OUR needs as medics. It's just the system. It's the system that runs us all ragged and uses us day after day like twenty dollar whores. It's the call volume and the dwindling staff. We need more trucks, we need more medics, we need more, more, more. Our system is very demanding and, most days, it's tough for the trucks on the street to keep up with the number of people calling. And, it's the getting a late call because there is nobody else, running hot and risking our lives, showing up on an ungrateful doorstep for a priority two toe-pain and a refusal from an angry caller that we won't leave their house right now. I mean, you called us, dude. And, frankly, you didn't need us, but we came anyway and brought our kind faces and helpful attitudes. So, you know, TRY to be nice.

I dread getting run down. I dread burning out. I dread having to keep going, for a long while to come, because I need the money, and I need the experience, and I need the money.

It's another one of those days when I say, I don't hate my job. There are things in my job, parts of my job that I love. Things and people I will NEVER see otherwise, never experience but in this field. And I NEED that. And I WANT that. I don't want to dread every work day, so I try to be happy and I try to remember the cool shit we get to do, even if I only get to watch it, I still get to be a PART of it. That helps to put me in a better mood, but it doesn't overshadow the feeling of dread completely. Nothing does. I think that's going to come down to me. It's not my partner, it's not my patients, it's not my job--it's me. I need to just get over it and try to be happy--which is about he hardest thing for me to do, ever. But, I should work on it. I should do it. Because I can't change anything but my attitude, so I'd better get in control of those things I can.

Okay, enough of that drivel. What did I say about being too girly? I said it, and I am sickened by my behavior all those paragraphs above. I need to stop being so freaking feminine and stop dissecting my feelings. I am the only person who cares. And, quite frankly, it's the same crap over and over again, so sorry I'm clogging up this blog with my emotions. I'll stop giving myself the same speech over and over and MOVE ON.

I got my payment plans all in order for the fall semester. Now that I can see it, and know how I will pay for it, I am stoked. I can't WAIT to be back in school. Yeah, I am terrified, because I haven't been in fifteen hours in school since 2006, and I certainly haven't done it while working sixty hour weeks. I need a 4.0. I NEED IT. How am I going to manage that while working like this and never having time to myself?! I have no idea.

But, I think being back in school will help me be happy. Or, help me remind myself why I need to be happy. I AM moving forward. I AM doing something to advance my education and move forward toward my ultimate career. I AM getting my bachelors--even though my mom seems to be convinced that I am, in fact, NOT doing that. I am. That's what I am doing this fall semester. Getting my degree.

Well...getting another semester under my belt. Which adds up toward my degree. Whatever, you know.

Anyway, I am excited but terrified and isn't that just MY LIFE? Excited, terrified, and worried I will be stuck still forever. I gotta unstick myself. Like Billy Pilgrim. Just come unstuck.

Today, since I am sitting in this lovely generic cafe, with this lovely mass-produced latte, and this lovely free wifi, I am going to research some things in Seattle. Like, SPD, for instance.

Do I really want to do that? Do I really want to try and be a cop for a little while? Do I really think I will like it? I know EMS wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I wasn't completely off in my assumptions. Maybe it'll be the same with PD. But, is that something I really want to commit to? See, I KNOW I don't want to commit the next four years of my life to Oklahoma. I know I don't want to be a paramedic in this state and get my undergrad while I work on the truck. I know I don't want that, mostly because I don't want Oklahoma. I don't want anything about Oklahoma. I don't LIKE Oklahoma. (I DO like my Oklahoma friends, though, so I guess that figures in, but it isn't a deal maker, because friends are friends wherever you are). I don't want to be here anymore, and, more often than I dream about anything else, I dream about getting out of this state one more, final time. I don't think I can buckle down for four years knowing eventually I will get out. That isn't going to work for me like it works for so many others. Instead of focusing on the task at hand--getting my degree, being a para, building my CV--I will be thinking about moving, my next step, getting out. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be OUT, so I can focus on the important things, like becoming whatever I am going to become after all is said and done. I will admit that seems nonsensical and childish, why can't I be an adult and suck it up and just do it? Because, I don't work like that. My mind thinks about what will MAKE it happy, not what has is happy today. Being in Oklahoma doesn't MAKE me happy, no matter how many cool things I get to do a day at my pretty cool job, or how easier it would be to just get a degree here. Nothing about it makes me happy, nothing about it makes me feel like I belong. In Oklahoma, I am in a hot, glass box, looking out at all the other people. And they are all looking at me--I'm a freak in this land. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to be somewhere I can blend in, tuck into the folds, disappear in the crowds. Then, and only then, can I focus on what I want to BE as opposed to WHERE I want to be. Maybe I am childish and nonsensical, but I have to do what my heart wants, even if all of your brains disagree.

Yeah, I could move to state where I could be a para. But, I don't know that I want to do that either. I think that, if I don't TRY to become a cop, even for a few years, that I will regret that forever. Kind of like how, if I don't TRY to become a doctor, I will regret that for the rest of my life. I don't want to regret anything. I already regret so much. I don't want to be the person looking back on her life and wondering, and wondering, and wishing I were a different girl. I am not, I am who I am, and I want what I want. And I want to make my twenties and adventure, so that my thirties can be lessons learned and experience put to practice. So I can know who I am and why I am who I am. So I can learn how to be.

This I know for sure: from today on and forever, no matter what happens, no matter what I chose, no matter how many times I change my mind, I am going to BE OK. I'm gonna be fine. Terrified and excited as I am, I will be just fine, no matter what the future holds.

Rip the Stitches