I like blue

I had a dream about this girl that I like, the other night...

"It's very quiet here." She said to me. My eyes were drawn to hers, and I could see the waves that whispered beside us reflected in them. During the day that place was warm, and the white sand of the beach had reflected the sun onto all the energetic faces that abounded, and laughter they all shared, but the sand, that evening, forgot, or simply did not speak of it. It was cool beneath my feet and in between my toes. Every sight, sound, and even the smell of the ocean asked me to breathe a little more slowly, and hold less in my mind. Everything asked that I not reminisce on the day, but simply be in that late evening where sunlight mixed with the many other stars and the sky shone many quiet blues. We slowly rocked, she and I, in that hammock with our feet off the edge in the sand, and a cool breeze pushed her closer to me. Her hand on the back of mine pulled me finally out of my own thoughts, and there I was, simply with her. I don't know that there were words; I like to imagine there weren't. We sat and spoke for hours without a sound, and the sky, sharing its shades with the water, never darkened to hide the last faint oranges of the sun that wished to bid us goodnight. Likely you'll think it to be because this was simply a dream, but as I imagined our words were spoken in silence, I imagine the sun was merely acting to acquiesce my desire that her smile and kind eyes not be hidden from me. "I like blue." I said quietly, finally, to her. 

You won't rattle my cage

In roughly one year and 7 months, I will be a licensed paramedic. In 13 weeks and one day, I will be sitting for the NREMT to be licensed as an EMT. I've become abreast of many of the things I will encounter while working a rig between class time, a convenient database of trauma pictures provided in said class, and a couple ambulance ride-alongs I've taken part in. I've yet, however, to encounter anything terrible first hand. 

I'm told by paramedics and EMT's that I know that watching "true stories" of the ER, looking at trauma pictures, or even spending time in an emergency room will hardly be sufficient to prepare for what I'll encounter on the job. According to them, there really is not preparation for the dive. There's only the dive. 

How, then, am I to be expected to know if what the hell I'm doing is right? How the hell am I expected to know if I will be able to function in triage during a multi-casualty event? How can I even know if I'll be able to keep cool while trying to simply place an IV in the back of an ambulance? 

Well...I can't. Moving forward isn't about knowing success is assured. It's about hoping there's a chance that success will happen to meander out of the forest and into a vulnerable place in the meadow (yes, I am referencing Bambi) where I will then capture it by force by whatever means I may have. 

I just started working at Caribou Coffee again after four years away. I'll tell you, there are few better gauges of growth than going back to work at a job you haven't held for four years. In 2011, a line out the door and a screen full of drinks would send me into a tailspin of stress that would keep me down for the rest of the day. Yesterday I worked the floor with one other man during a buy-one-get-one deal, and deals such as that happen to be the dreaded "white girl's" natural prey, and they came in droves. I, circa 2011, would have locked up, stared at the screen, and said seldom a word to customers riding the carousel from the door to me to the drink counter. I, circa yesterday, did not act in this way. I locked eyes with everyone, held an un-trembling voice, and treated each customer with kindness and without a frantic tone, as though there was not, in fact, a line out the door. 

Call me outlandish and stupid, but I see my little coffee shop as a somewhat comparable paradigm to working a rig. The stress and emotional torment of losing a patient, or having a family screaming at me for not resuscitating a DNR patient will most definitely be deeper seated than a suburban mom screaming at me for giving her white chocolate instead of dark. This is not my point. My point is that, in each situation, there is a relatively large amount of stress, and in each situation there is a limit to the speed at which I can work - a limit to the control in my hands. 

To lay my purpose bare, identify your limitations, and do not delude yourself into beliefs of grandeur. Knowing your TRUE limits (not the limits you merely impose on yourself out of laziness) does not equip you to blast through them heroically, but rather, equips you to work within them, and to not let your cage be rattled when confronted by them or berated for them. 

Please do not misunderstand - I am not advocating simple acceptance of your present state as your eternal state of being. Work to push out your limits. Become faster and stronger, able to focus more and procrastinate less. Work on these things as continual growth and learning, but accept where you are right now as being your current reality. Do not anguish for that, over which, you have no control...sit with it. I promise you will be ok. 

Berate and belittle me, say all that you can

You think me too weak, tell me I am not a man

Your words fall on deaf ears, I've no time for what you say

I know when to sweat and bleed, and I know when to call it a day

I'll not lie to myself, or attempt to impress you

There's little point in pretending to convince so few

I don't give a damn for your opinion, as you try to drive me to rage

I sincerely don't care what you think, you will not rattle my cage