Que Sera Sera
It has occurred to me that I might have to change the title of this blog from Liberal Artist in the Ambulance to Liberal Artist in the Psychiatric Hospital or Liberal Artist in the Middle of Nowhere…
You ever hear that quote by Joseph Campbell, “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.”? Well, I know from personal experience…it’s true.
As the regular readers of my blog will know, my life was thrown into turmoil a while back when my dream of becoming an EMT was crushed. It was devastating because, well, it was my dream! I was shocked, confused, and also in a very difficult financial situation as well.
But good news! Life has improved since then and things are still looking up! I have moved to the wonderful, wonderful Midwest (a.k.a. “The Middle of Nowhere”), got a job, bought a car, and am leasing an apartment. Admittedly, any one of those things by itself would have been a huge step up from my previous situation (I mean, when you hit bottom the only way to go is up, right?), but I still feel extremely blessed to have all of those things after only being here for 3.5 weeks.
See the thing is, I didn’t just get any job. I got a job in a mental health setting. That is a big deal considering that is my probable future career field. Even though going home for EMT school and eventually to work full-time as an EMT was my plan, obviously that wasn’t where I was meant to be. I had myself convinced that I would somehow be able to do that and still prepare for graduate school at the same time. It is only now, in retrospect, that I realize how silly that was. There are so many reasons why I am not ready for graduate school yet and so many things that I need to work on between now and then—I’m trying to figure out how I was stupid enough to believe that I could do all that in that setting.
I’m not ready to thank the company for not hiring me yet, either. I feel like it will probably end up being the best thing that ever happened to me, even though it was the most devastating. However, it still hurt. I had the want-to and the know-how to be an EMT, it was something that I was passionate about doing, and there was nothing about me (that I could identify) that would lead them to believe that I wouldn’t be a good employee with them. In the days that followed the news, I kept trying to figure out what was wrong with me that they didn’t want to hire me. And I know everyone is wondering the same thing. But I’ve finally come to realize that there is nothing wrong with me. These kinds of things are as much about fit-ness as they are about qualifications, and I guess I was just not a good fit for that company.
Whatever the reason, and whatever my life would have been had things gone according to my plan, it’s time to let go. I’m making a good life for myself here. I have enough money to pay my bills and buy food, and that’s all I can really ask for. Yes, I miss Louisiana a bit—mostly the food, some of the people—and no, I don’t plan to stay in the Midwest forever. But by moving here, I have been able to get closer to where I want to be sooner than if I had stayed home. Now, because I’m getting experience in a mental health setting, graduate school seems so much more attainable than before. And my EMS career isn’t over yet! I’m going to be interviewing with the EMS agency here and hopefully I’ll be able to attain my true dream of combining my interests in EMS and clinical psychology into a career.
So for now, I will keep the name of this blog as Liberal Artist in the Ambulance because I still do hope to be just that very soon. Que sera sera and we’ll go from there…
