So today is ending up being the day I start the honest uninhibited full-acceptance grief process for my career. The inebriated pilot poured whiskey on the overheated controls of that ship instead of making an emergency landing a long time ago but up until recently there was always this coy implication that things would return if you trusted the process. It keeps you going until you can handle seeing the actual reality. Onion layers and ironies abound on this one. A while back I wrote a line in a poem, “leaving on a low note with your head held high”, and that seems apt for where I find myself now. Flooded with tears and sadness seemingly very suddenly I let my wife know. Weird right? Who says shit about old dogs anymore anyway? Relational growth aside what I do now cements my experience of this transition for the rest of my life. Recent developments in therapy have added such irritating concepts as “grey areas” and “who says it can’t be both?” type questions, so in that spirit comes the acceptance and grief for this fiercely loathed finale. Truth is PTSD happened, it’s real, I significantly experienced it and I can no longer call bullshit on it. Life on the road is over. My new calling is to dust off whatever uniform stuff still fits and head back accepting of whatever I am capable of doing for work behind the scenes while I extoll the virtues and rewards of fighting hopelessness and theistic nihilism.

The problem I have with grief is I don’t really know much about working through it. My mother died when I was barely 3 so I only know grief as a cold isolated vacuum void of any happy memories that could help counter the feelings of loneliness and emptiness. My father remarried 10 months later. My sister, 10 years my senior, developed ye olde “behavioural problems” and given tough love was all the rage back then any therapy involved blaming her for not knowing how to process her own grief properly. I seemed okay so the focus and energy was on dealing with her and the ruining of her life. I wasn’t old enough to know I wasn’t okay. The fact that my father, step-mother and sister saw countless therapists and not one of these fuckwits thought checking on me might be prudent baffles me. Seriously. But here I am anyway, that’s my hand.

I’m going to miss driving lights and sirens through the busy metropolis. I’m not going to miss staring down at my boots in shame trying not to cry between calls and failing. I’m going to miss seeing a patient improve after my interventions. I’m not going to miss reliving my nightmares visiting the same buildings and locations repeatedly. I’m going to miss somehow getting assorted fractures and injuries to the trauma hospitals that were at least usually only a few axle-cracking potholes and hydroplane-like streetcar tracks away. I’m not going to miss being verbally and physically abused. Especially the spitting. I’m going to miss how acceptable dark humour was on the road. Definately won’t be missing using the stair chair. I’m going to miss the feeling of brotherhood with the knowing caveat that the organization first and foremost must keep the organization running and to a degree that brotherhood is a propagandish illusion that gets played up to help morale. Still felt good though. I’m not going to miss the drunks, especially the “weekend warrior” gentrified condo drunks that threw up everywhere suddenly, toileted in inappropriate places and still felt they were “all that” after getting their ass kicked by a frustrated local. I’m going to miss seeing patients being discharged home later that shift. I’m not going to miss seeing them stay.

I’m going to miss it.

I can keep pulling flower petals all I want but I’m going to miss being a frontline paramedic. It was the only job I ever consistently wanted to do. It really fucking hurts knowing I have say goodbye and I’m just going to have to let it. I don’t know what else to do but acknowledge the end and see what I feel.

Oh, there’s also this idea floating around that those feelings that do come up shouldn’t be judged.