Evaluations

Since starting my EMT class I’ve had two skills evaluations and two written evaluations. I’ve never been afraid of written tests because I have confidence in my ability to learn and retain information. The skills portion of the evaluations, where I actually had to show my ability to perform the skills I’ve been taught, kind of freaked me out. I can’t think of many times where I’ve had to actually perform skills in front of an evaluator and get graded on my ability to perform them accurately and with confidence.

In taking this EMT class, and riding on the rescue squad, I’ve learned a lot that I’m applying to my real life, and its changed me. Or rather its made me more keenly aware of the ways that I have changed since I graduated college. These evaluations are no different. I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately, and I realized that in one way or another I’ve been “evaluating” my life and how well I’m learning the “skills” I’ve been taught along the way.

I think that’s what writing has been for me over the past few years: my way to step back from my life every once in awhile in order to evaluate where I was, where I am, and what I’ve observed and learned along the way. As an added bonus it gives me a written record to look back on, even if no one else ever reads that writing, and see just how far I’ve come in life, what I’ve been through, and how I got through them.

I think that is what frustrates me most about the severe writer’s block I have been dealing with ever since I graduated. Yes, I’m still internally evaluating what I’m going through and what I’m learning from it all, but I feel lost without that written record to look back on. I guess similarly to class, I need both a written and “skills” evaluation for my life.

Although this insight into my “evaluation” of my own life on a day to day basis has opened my eyes to why the loss of writing in my life has been bothering me so much, it has failed to bring me a solution to my writer’s block problem. What it has made me relize is that whether or not I ever write again I still need to maintain a constant level of evaluating my life. Not to the point where it hinders my ability to live, but just enough to make sure I continue to live life and learn and grow along the way.

Maybe evaluations don’t scare me as much as I thought. I guess I’ve been doing them all along.

Some Mad Hope

Hope is defined as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” Hope is a word, a feeling, an emotion, a state of mind, an outlook on life, and yet I’ve always felt that hope is a worthless emotion. I find that in most situations hope is of no help to the people involved. What about those who are trying to get out of a bad situation and are hoping that they find a way out? Well then I’d say they should stop wasting their time hoping and spend time finding a solution and finding a way out. I see hope as a passive action, almost a way of saying you’re waiting for the universe to solve your problems for you instead of being active and working at a solution yourself.

And despite my belief that hope is a worthless emotion I find myself hoping for a lot of things these days, in all areas of my life. What am I hoping for you ask:

I’m hoping that I pass my EMT Basic course and that my enthusiasm for this great new thing I’m doing and am excited about doesn’t go away. I’m hoping that my love for reading and writing comes back sometime very soon because I miss that in my life. I’m hoping that my “go with the flow” attitude ends me where I need to be going in life. I’m hoping that a solution to my school dilemma will magically appear before me and I’ll know without a doubt that that solution is the “right”  solution. I’m hoping that the guy I’m crazy about isn’t a player like most of the other guys I know and like I’m beginning to think he is. I’m hoping that at some point what I want in life and what I’m doing in life somehow become the same thing. I’m hoping I can find the motivation to lose the last 40 pounds that I want to lose…and keep it off.

I could continue, but I don’t want to go on too long, and I think you get the idea. Suddenly I’m hoping for a lot in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m working, actively, towards all of these things. But no matter how hard I work on some of these things, in many of these situations the end result really isn’t up to me…no matter how hard I work. So sometimes hope is all I really have.

Maybe hope isn’t a useless emotion. Maybe sometimes it is ok to have some mad hope.

One Year and Four Months Later

Tonight I noticed a friend post on facebook that thinking about what they were going to do after graduation gave them a headache. I remember that feel all too well. As I think back to that time in my life, I think about all the stress I put myself through and all the worrying and planning and plotting every single step and move that I would make for at least the first five years directly following graduation. Its not healthy (duh!) and I wish someone had shown me that in the end it wasn’t worth it. Of course, even if someone had told me to stop stressing about what was “next” I know I wouldn’t have listened to them.

In the last year and four months since I graduated college I have learned so much about myself, experienced and been through so much, and learned so much about the world that I often can’t believe its been only just over a year. I’ve changed a lot, and for the most part I think I’ve changed for the better. I’ve come into my own. I’m more self-assured and self-confident. I take on challenges knowing I can succeed, instead of assuming I’m going to fail. I feel empowered and, for the first time in my life, like I have a firm grip on the reins of my life and I’m riding down the right path. Its the best feeling in the world.

I haven’t really posted much about what new things I’m doing in my life “post-grad”, but I figured since this is a blog about life post graduation and the different paths that Patty and I have chosen to take, that I should update all you loyal readers about whats new and interesting in the world of Adrienne.

1. I am now a fire fighter. Thats right, you heard me. I feel so kick ass and amazing in my gear. Its one of the greatest and coolest things I’ve ever done. But here’s a tip: if a firefighter comes out at 11 o’ clock at night to wade around in hip deep polluted flood waters in your basement to help you save your expensive tools, don’t stand on the news a week later and tell the world that you “lost everything”. Not cool. I don’t have a lot of training yet, but I’m having fun with it and its nice to be a part of an organization that helps the community I live in. Tip #2: if firefighters rescue you from your house (that always floods) because you didn’t want to try to leave until 10pm (and the flooding started at 2pm) at least say thank you when they rescue you and don’t just walk away. Again, not cool. On the training side, I will hopefully be starting Firefighter One training sometime in the near future with the other kick ass lady who joined the department around the same time I did.

2. You’re looking at the newest member of my local rescue squad. This is another new development, and while I think I’m getting in way over my head on this one, I”m choosing to look at it as a challenge that can be defeated as long as I’m willing to ask questions, learn, and jump in with both feet right from the get-go. I went to the monthly meeting tonight and for the first time noticed just how much I’ve changed. A year ago I would have walked into that meeting (if I didn’t just run away scared in the first place), with a book and sat in the corner being shy and awkward. Tonight, however, I walked into a room of 20 people (of which I knew one) and started introducing myself to people and talking to them. It was so great to feel confident and self-assured and like I belonged, even though I’d never met these people before. I will (hopefully!!!) be starting the EMT Basic course at the end of this month and it runs through March. I can’t wait to start!! I’ve been on one shift so far (with no calls) and am scheduled for 3 shifts this week. Here’s hoping I get some calls and get to get my feet wet!!

3. I’ve got only ONE job!!! I know this sounds a little insane for those of you who don’t know me, so let me explain. I’ve never had less than two jobs at all times, and throughout college I often had three. I was a master at schedule co-ordinating and time management. But now I only have one, and a great one at that. This summer I was promoted to barn manager at the horse farm where I’ve worked for the past 4 and a half years. Its such a rewarding feeling to know that my hard work and dedication to my job has been noticed and recognized and I have been rewarded with an important role on the farm. It sucks getting up at 6am 6 days a week, but I’m trying to look on the bright side…I’m working outside, staying active (no gym membership for me!), and working with the most beautiful animals ever created (in my opinion).

4. I’m back in school. I’m attending UAlbany part-time (any of my undergrad professors who have a problem with that can just deal…I”m never going back to school full time). I take two classes this semester, and they are boring as hell. I’ll be taking two classes a semester for seven semesters (including summer session), so I will hopefully be graduating in the Fall of 2014. Oh, and by going part time and having a full time job I’m still paying off under-grad loans so not only am I getting  a Master’s Degree in Information Science, but I’m also doing it in a financially responsible way that keeps my debt accrument to a minimum. While I”m not as in love with school as I used to be, I know I need it to get to where I want to go. Its a means to an end. It’s only three weeks in, and I already can’t wait to be done with it.

Yes, I’ve taken on a lot, but I have no doubts that I can not only do it all, but do it all exceptionally well. I set the bar high for myself, this I know, but I also know (unlike previously in my life) that there really isn’t much I can’t do if I want it badly enough and set my mind to it. But probably the most important thing I’ve realized lately is what I told my friend who is stressing about life after graduation: “If you’d told me a year and a half ago that I’d be doing what I’m doing now I’d have told you you were crazy. All my plans from senior year fell apart…and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Sometimes things have to fall apart to make way for better things” ~Ted (How I Met Your Mother). A year ago I would have told you this was an insane comment. That things falling apart meant I’d done something wrong and life was ruined. But looking back now I realize just how true this statment is. My life fell apart last summer, and now, a year later, its more fullfilling, exciting, exhilirating, empowering, and more exactly what it should be than I ever imagined it could be. I’ve found my path, and I’m still not entirely sure where its taking me, but for the first time I don’t really care. I’m running full speed ahead anyway.

~Adrienne

“I can be your hero baby…”

I can’t believe that it’s already almost the end of August. Seems like time this year has just flown by. Here in my town our county fair opened yesterday, signaling the end of summer. I’ve never been a summer person, but this year the thought that summer is ending makes me very sad. I’ve been thinking a lot about why that is, and I think I may have finally figured it out. This summe has been one filled with not only fun and excitement, but bad times and disappointments. My emotions have ranged and raged back and forth on the craziest roller coaster ride of emotions I’ve ever been on. I know that doesn’t sound like the best summer, but to me it is. For once I feel like I’m finally living and handling life well, and I feel like this summer I’ve lived an entire lifetime. It was great, and I will treasure the memories and miss the summer of 2011.

The most recent development of my summer is that I joined the local fire department. This is something that I put on my “bucket list” when I first made it sometime about a year ago, but it was honestly something I didn’t think I could do. Ladders? Fire? Saving people and property? Could I handle the physicality of the job? Well then I remembered I’m a pretty rough and tumble farm chick, so I have no more fears about the physicality of the job. The rest? Well that’s all still up in the air. I guess only time will tell.

I’ve been in the fire department for about a month now, and I still don’t feel quite like its a part of me yet. I tell people that I’m a firefighter and people comment on the pager that I wear on my hip (which I’ve discovered is a killer conversation starter with guys, haha), and yet I still feel like the words and their relation to me are foreign and unreal. I guess maybe it’s like a new pair of jeans…you gotta wear them to break them in awhile before you really feel like they fit you and are yours.

Last night we had a drill where I got to learn how to use the pump and handle the hoses. It was so much fun. I felt the beginnings of that feeling that I can do this, and I loved it. I don’t know what possessed me to take the leap and join the fire department, but I’m glad I did. It really is nice to bust out of your normal pattern and comfort zone and do something completely unexpected every once in awhile.

The idea of being a firefighter is something that’s been on my mind a lot lately. The term firefighter is often used in relation to the word hero or heroic. So I’ve taken this idea of heroes and have been pondering it for a few weeks. We can all think of our favorite heroes from movies and books, but I think what most people don’t realize is that almost all of us are looking for our own personal hero. I’m not talking about one of those people that we list under “who are your heroes” on any profile you have to fill out. I’m talking about those real, up close individuals that we would say helped save us from ourselves or our lives or that helped us find ourselves. Most of us feel lost in some way and we all want a hero to save us.

I was explaining to my friend yesterday that I have a ”type” of guy that I fall for. I fall for the heroes. Now, they don’t necessarily have to be heroes, but I’m referring to those men who are in what many would deem “hero” professions. I can’t help it. If they’re cute and a paramedic/emt, firefighter, or police officer (although for me not as much as the other two), I fall for them. My friend is a psych major, so she immediately started telling me about what she termed as “white knight syndrome”. We want someone to ride in and save us, and this attraction to men in hero professions is my way of manifesting that.

Where is all this going? Well somewhere amid my learning how to wield a fire hose and beginning to finally feel like a firefighter I realized something: no one is going to save me. Kind of a depressing thought right? Not for me. Because that realization was quickly followed by the realization that I can, and am the only one, who can save myself. I was floored. I’m the hero of my own story? I knew that theory, but I’d never necessarily believed in it. And suddenly I do. We can’t each wait around for someone to come riding in on a white horse and save us. We’ve gotta get our own horse and save ourselves. We have to be our own hero.

~Adrienne

The Walls We Build

Its now been 3 months or more since I’ve last posted on here. I’ve started more posts than I can remember, and four of them still remain in draft form, not yet ready for the world to see. I get halfway through these posts and stop because I don’t have time to finish them, lose interest, or feel like I’ve drifted from the point I was trying to make. But all of these are just excuses and it took me having some very truthful conversations with a couple people to realize the real reason I’ve stopped writing, not only on here, but also for myself. I’ve put back up the walls it took me so long and was so painful for me to break down.

I’ve got a lot of skills, but probably the thing I’m most skillful at is building up walls around myself to protect myself from getting hurt. Its something that I’ve always done, and its almost second nature. The minute I feel threatened or feel vulnerable up go the walls and I shut down emotionally. I guess I feel like my heart can’t be hurt or broken if I pretend I don’t have one. I’ve always been great at making sure no one gets close enough to hurt me. As a good friend told me once, I keep people at arms length and then push really hard to make sure they stay there.

Through my college experience I learned to let my guard down and let some people in. Unfortunately I went too far in the other direction. I stopped using any discretion and started being very open with anyone who would listen, instead of choosing carefully who I let close and when. What happened then? I got hurt…really hurt, by a lot of people, some of which were people I considered my closest friends. So I shut down and up went the walls.

My insightful friend (the same as from above) told me today that I push people away and don’t even realize that I’m doing it. He was half right. I do realize that I do it, and yet I can’t stop myself from doing it. That scares me. But what scares me more is that I’ve not only put up walls and been pushing others away, but now I’ve built up walls seemingly to protect myself from… me. And those are walls I’m not quite sure how to break down.

I almost didn’t post this because to me it doesn’t sound like I’m making any sense, and I’m going to end this without making much of a conclustion, but I’ve decided to post it anyway in an attempt to begin chipping away at the wall I so expertly built around my heart.

So where does all this leave me? Honestly, I don’t have a clue. I know that I don’t want to have walls up and be constantly pushing people away, but I don’t know how to stop doing something I’ve always done. I know that if I let down my walls I’ll get hurt, and that scares me more than anything else. I told my friend that having walls up is worth it if it meant I wasn’t going to get hurt. He simply asked “is it?” Well now I’m not so sure. I can’t guarantee that I’m going to drop my guard anytime soon, but maybe I could try to ease up on it a bit and not push people away quite so hard and fast.

There’s a quote that says, “I’ve learned that the best way to prevent your heart from getting broken is to act like you don’t have one.” But the reality is that we all have a heart that demands to have a say in our lives and we can only shut it down for so long before it starts screaming and demanding attention. Well my hearts been screaming for a long time, so maybe its time to let it get a little bruised and beaten and maybe somewhere along the way I’ll find what I’m looking for.

~Adrienne

Supersonic

This is me being sentimental. This is me wishing I could freeze time. This is me telling my memories, Don’t go. Stay.

I’m moving in eight days. The time ticks away in my head. T- x days until I die in the city, until Philadelphia swallows me whole. Until someone mugs me at Bally Total Fitness. Until someone slips crack in my iced coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts. I wonder what I’d be thinking if I didn’t take Zoloft.

I moved to Perkasie a little over a year ago, vowing to myself – and to a couple close friends – that I would leave this good-for-nothing town as soon as I could. I’d go someplace better. A town with more charm, more intellectual pursuits available at my fingertips; a town where, if I wanted, I could drink a chai latte and be surrounded by the comforting smell of used books. I wanted my town to be my sanctuary. I wanted my town to be home.

Now that I’m so close to leaving Perkasie for my next adventure, I see that this town, despite my initial misgivings, has become home – not because it has a used bookstore (it doesn’t), but because in Perkasie, I can walk to the gym and feel safe. I know the guy who works at the Post Office on Saturday mornings. The woman who hands me “Greg’s Chicken Salad Sandwich” at the cafe knows I’m studying literature and writing. I’ve read Kingsolver and Ansay in the park. I’ve listened to the neighborhood kids scream, “I’m gonna push you into the water!” as they stood beneath a giant mushroom fountain, water pouring down its speckled plastic sides, shielding the children from view. And, in my quieter moments, when I’m in my apartment burning incense and drinking tea, contemplating life’s possibilities, I’ve realized that I’ve come full-circle. That I love myself, and I love this town. That this is home. That I have many homes: Tunkhannock, where I was raised; Bennington, where I learned more about myself and the world than I can adequately describe; Douglas, where there’s a house that used to be painted the color of peanut butter, and an orange cat named Gizzmo stalks all creatures great and small; Lake Nockamixon, where I go to secure a sense of inner peace when everything is spinning out of control. What the tacky plaques and coffee mugs say is true: home is where the heart is. My heart is in several places, and that’s okay.

On Thursday I spent the day by myself at the lake reading A. Manette Ansay’s Blue Water. I packed three other books, a blanket to spread on the ground, and a keychain vial of pepper spray (my dad insists that I carry it on me at all times). After reading and swimming for four hours, I left, went back to my apartment, showered, and got ready to go out to dinner with my friend Linda. We decided to go to a park near her apartment and eat sandwiches from Subway.

I talked with Linda for hours. We watched the sun sink behind the trees, casting an orange glow on the youth soccer game. We talked about life, about love. About transitions and difficulties. About hope. About God, and god. About mirrors.

I won’t divulge the details of our conversation, but there was a point when she took off her sunglasses, looked at me, and said, “Patty, I’m forty-nine years old, and I have to start living for myself.” At that, I put my sandwich down (it takes a lot for me to put food down, especially a sandwich), and replied, “Thatta girl.” We laughed until we cried.

On our way back, we drove through the countryside. Linda pointed out places she had onced lived: the sprawling, sloping farmhouse she had shared with her ex-husband, her first apartment, the house where she was raised as a strict Catholic. She said she had loved them all. She said they were all home.

I nodded, avoiding her eyes, and instead observed the last minutes of the sunset. The sky was on fire, and I was in a Hyundai with a forty-nine-year-old lapsed Catholic hippie. I felt blessed.

Home, I learned that evening, would not disappear with a change of address. They’ll always be there, like the sunset. Like the soccer field, the fountain mushroom, the children laughing. Like the fireworks above the Sonic I ohhh-ed and awww-ed at on the drive back. Like the echo of a celebration. Like the memory, I say with a smile, of a sonic boom.

Jackpot.

I don’t know whether or not I believe in miracles. I know that I believe in hard work and dedication, but miracles? Probably not. A ‘miracle,’ if I am to use the dictionary definition of the term, occurs with the interaction of a divine agent. Most people call this agent God. And if I were to ask myself years ago what a ‘miracle’ was, I most likely would have included this deity in my definition.

Today, while crouched on my living room floor, trying to replace a vacuum belt as my cat clawed at my arm, my fan whirred, and my neighbor mowed his lawn, I thought about miracles. I thought about how, at six o’clock on a Monday evening, I was sitting on my floor in shorts and a tank top, sweat dripping down my face, refusing to read the Hoover’s instruction manual. I figured if I was going to do this, I didn’t want the help of a tri-lingual manual. I wanted to figure it out for myself. All of it.

On the bottom of the vacuum’s plate – an appliance that was a housewarming gift from my parents when I moved to Perkasie – was a set of instructions for maintenance. Encoded on plastic were phrases like “Slide red lever to the left to unlock, then turn the handle clockwise. DANGER: DO NOT OPERATE VACUUM WHEN PLATE IS REMOVED.” I thought about compensation from the Hoover company. If I lost a finger, would I receive a tidy settlement?

Sure, the maneuvering and the figuring and the sheer energy it took to sit on the floor for forty-five minutes with a vacuum propped against my legs wasn’t exactly pleasant. I cursed vacuum belts everywhere. There has to be a hell designated for vacuum belts. But what bothered me the most about the situation was my reaction to it–the bitterness, specifically. I was replacing a vacuum belt, and I was bitter about it. I was bitter that I didn’t have someone to help me with this task, that I was sitting alone in my soon-to-be vacant apartment with a vacuum and a tortishell cat at six o’clock on a gorgeous Monday evening in late June. Here I was, in the bloom of my adulthood, and I was trying to be a female version of Mr. Fix-It from The Busy World of Richard Scarry. I cursed the belt; I cursed the situation; I cursed the monotony of my existence. I was destined to be alone and fix small appliances my whole life. For me, I think that would be the opposite of a miracle.

I snapped the plate into place and sighed. Like several things in my life, it was done. Over. Finished. I could wash my hands, remove the dirt that’s been lodged beneath my fingernails for the past few years. I could wash myself clean of the grime, the guilt, the bitterness.

But hearing that snapping sound the moment when plastic met plastic and each piece fit just right, I knew that what I wanted most wasn’t a clean floor. A spotless carpet doesn’t do anyone a bit of good, besides impressing guests or providing oneself with an ounce of momentary satisfaction. What I wanted was clean conscience: clarity that would help me sleep at night, without hours’ long phone conversations and Sleepytime Extra tea to lull me into a fitful slumber. And no instruction manual would be of use. When you’re attempting to seek your ‘higher’ self, your ‘better’ self, your ‘true’ self, no directions – written in any language, in any font, in any size – will do you a sliver of good.

During a recent conversation, someone told me his views about death: according to him, when we die what we leave behind is the communication we’ve shared with others. We leave pieces of ourselves with everyone we’ve interacted with. That’s our legacy.

After changing the vacuum belt, I considered his proposition. That, above all else, communication is what matters the most. We’re not only creating ourselves when we communicate, but we’re helping shape the people who read, or hear, our words. If I died right now, I thought, tossing around the idea of mortality with a shudder and a sigh, would anyone know how much I desire a clean conscience?

I thought about the words I’ve shared: in class, on this blog; in conversations in coffee shops, offices, work environments, in the places I’ve called ‘home.’ I’ve been compassionate. I’ve been a friend to many, and an enemy to a few. I’ve built bonds and broken them. I’ve let some people in, and I’ve shut others out. And, using the idea stated above, I have created and I have been created. Communication is a symbiotic relationship where both parties give and receive.

An hour after the vacuum fiasco, I drove to the grocery store and picked up a package of hamburgers. On my way out, I glanced at the green Pennsylvania Lottery machine. I kept walking, knowing that I didn’t have the money to waste on a lottery ticket. Still, the digital red numbers enticed me. For $20, I could win 3.4 million; for $1, I could win $33,000. From my childhood watching 60 Minutes, I knew the odds were stacked against me–something along the lines that I had a better chance of being struck by lightning than hitting the jackpot.

I walked on. Then, telling myself that it’s about time I cut loose and take a chance on the state of Pennsylvania, I fed the machine a rather wrinkly dollar bill. The machine spit out a ticket. I grabbed the paper, hurried outside, and scratched the ticket against the beam of Giant. So there I was, standing with a lottery ticket and a penny against a Giant grocery store beam, trying my luck at faith.

With my effort, the numbers appeared: two $60′s, two $1′s, one $33,000, and one FREE TICKET. The directions in the top left corner of the ticket reminded me, cruelly, that I needed three of the same amounts to win.

I sighed, knowing that I could’ve used $33,000 dollars, or even $60. Sixty dollars would buy me a lot of Kraft mac ‘n cheese. This thought was followed by another one, derived from a short story written by a man I admire: “I don’t think it’s about winning.”

The recognition that not everything is a competition between who is ‘better,’ ‘smarter,’ or more ‘right’ is a small miracle. So is replacing a vacuum belt, taking a chance, playing a game.

And maybe, if we believe in the promise of today and tomorrow, we don’t need instructions to have a little faith in the possibility of miracles.