I have to be careful of what I write. Too much may get me in trouble later on down the line. But I also have the right to speak my mind openly and honestly. Since I was wrongfully terminated life got hard. I knew I couldnt afford to stay in the home I had been renting for the past 9 years. Unemployment took months to get and even when I did get my one and only check it didnt even pay for groceries. I pulled out my 401k. All of it. The stock market was shit anyway and I dont believe anything can increase in profits forever and ever. The sheet has to balance at some point. I knew the 401k money wouldn’t last long. But it certainly took the edge off for awhile. It finally ran out a few weeks ago. Now I have to see if I can survive on the jobs I have now. For October I worked 3 part time minimum wage jobs. I was at Pirates of Emerson, Games of Berkeley and a SCUBA shop. Only Games of Berkeley pays $1 above minimum wage. At least their the only ones who appear to be trying. The employee discount they give to us is nice but meaningless when your bank account is always in the negatives. Ive been at the SCUBA shop for awhile now learning how to fill SCUBA tanks, checking them for safety, selling SCUBA gear, washing rental gear, fiting people for their classes and a plethora of other skills learned. Both my Bosses have been on several trips to places life Fiji and Africa. Even after all of my improvement there is no increase in pay and still only making minimum wage and as a 1099 to boot. At this point im still living paycheck to paycheck even though I had 3 jobs. I constantly fill up my gas tank in $15 to $20 increments because its all I can afford. I havent been grocery shopping in while. Ive been living off of cans of tuna and chicken with mac n cheese and oatmeal with brown sugar or the cheapest fast food I can find near me. Trying to get on food stamps is just as hard as unemployment. Its a long application process that takes months and even then, they want updates on your income constantly. I just gave up on it altogether. I try to keep my head up. I still play board games and LARP as often as I can. But is an understatement that life is hard. Its an understatment to say I. Lost. Everything. I really did. After my divorce, life got so much harder. Divorce, Job loss, cats dying, losing the house, nearly being homeless and my mom moving to North Dakota. All of it takes it toll. If I had not been able to move into a room for rent with my best friend I seriously would have been homeless. Even then I had to give up my dog because the landlord had it out for him for some reason. Just one more thing to add onto the pile right? I havent talked to my real dad in ages. He only reaches out once a year when he needs something. The grandparents house just compleatly fell apart. Grampa is sick and not recovering well. Tuckers back legs stopped working and a certain family member keeps calling the grandparents asking them for money.

I might go back to EMS but some of my certs have expired and it cost a lot money to retake those classes. There are places hiring like Tesla, Pepsi or bobtail work. But I also dont want to work a job where I am miserable. The whole point of taking a break was so I can take more time for and to see friends and family. Which I am able to achieve but at the cost of being broke all the time. It seems the “work life balance” is nonexistant. Its either you work or you enjoy life but never both. Working a normal job you might have weekends off. Working in EMS you have no weekends off and you work every holiday. Even on my days off I was so tired I didnt want to go anywhere or do anything. As I sit here and write this I dont feel like I can really convey how I am feeling. How much of an impact everything has taken on me. I wonder how much I have not even processed. Being poor sucks and minnimum wage is bullshit. Sorry if it seems like my mind is everywhere Im just writing whatever pops in my head.

It may be cliche to say but in the process of losing everything I really did find myself. Its amazing the kind of person you find when extreme hardships are applied. I stopped the bullshit search of being a firefighter. Its not what I really wanted. Some things are just hard to let go after you have perused them for so long. Right after the divorce is when I realized how much I didnt want to apply to being a firefighter. Its not that I dont find it interesting. I do. If there was a volunteer department close by that didnt cost my only time off to participate in then I would jump at the opportunity. The the big city departments are just not for me. At this point im 32. Playing the probie game is not beyond me but I also have zero desire for it. Perhaps it is my character that is not a good fit for it. I dont know. Instead of giving up my life to something I didnt really desire I started playing again. Video games, Board games, LARP and so much more. I found a girl I really like. We have our problems and several several bumps but we are working on things. It nice to know I can still fall in love again. Despite everything that happened.

To say I was burned out is also an understatement. When I worked I would develop these red rashes on my face called Rosacea and sever stomach problems. Seriously I would nearly poop myself constantly while working on the ambulance. When I went to the doctors about it there was one common factor. Stress. The job was stressful and it took a real toll on my body. Rightfully so. 12 hour shifts that often stretched to 13 or 14. Working weekends, holidays and even took a night shift because it paid more money. Not to mention the job itself. I stepped in brains, saw multiple burn victims, children struggling to breathe, more sootings than I care to talk about and got just about every type of bodily fluid you can think of on my uniform. I have constant PTSD. The voices in my head. The screams of a mother who has seen her deceased child. The way a body can sit up with a cell phone in hand as if it could move any minute, long deceased. Having 2 people pass away right front of me. As in one minute they were talking to me looking at me and carrying a conversation and then slump over dead. Twice. This happened twice. Not my fault. and I know that. There are so many things I saw and experienced and unfortunately I carry with me. I was seeing a therapis for all these things. But PTSD in EMS is unique. If someone has a tramatic experience and they go to a therapist they can work though that trauma for years. But in EMS its occurring. One thing might happen. You talk to a therapist. Maybe work to get past it. Then another thing and then another and another. I dont think that im trying to convey is making sense. But mulitple doctors told me to quit my job because nearly all of my medical problems came from the job. I didnt want to. I would never sit here and toot my own horn, but I was good. Like I was really fucking good at my job. Which is why I wanted to teach. I wanted to help produce good solid EMT’s who would go out and make a real difference. as cliche as that sounds. It was the best way I felt I could truly make an impact on my community. and i did. Several of my students went on to do really great things and I am so proud of them.

As far as i could tell people liked working with me. I kept quiet and to myself. I get social anxiety when in large groups. Lots of people had no idea who I was. I guess my motto went something like, if you know me, you know me. If you dont know me, then you dont need to. I was never the type of person who wanted to be liked by everyone. Hell I didnt even want everyone to know who I was. To me, a person can judge me by my merits and interactions with them alone. Outside of that I really didnt give a shit. Very rarely did someone not like me. and usually it was due to their own bias and had nothing to do with me as a person. I think ill end this here. I fear I have already said too much.