I'm moving on. For now.

I've always said that my Mother is one of the toughest people I know.

She raised us on her own. A single Mother, with no help whatsoever from my Father. She worked thankless job upon thankless job. Sometimes two or three at a time. She'd come home, exhausted, just to make dinner, do laundry, iron the clothes, fix lunches, get us ready for bed and collapse into her own bed.

Lather, rinse, repeat. The woman is and will always be a damn Saint in my eyes.

In her 51 years she never had a job she enjoyed. She never had a job that left her feeling like she did some good at the end of the day. She never had a job where she looked forward to going in to in the morning. She never complained. At least in front of us.

As an adult (if you can call me that) and a parent, I understand that she was doing what she needed to do to keep my brother and I clothed, and housed and fed. She never took a dime of public assistance in all those years.

I respect the hell out of her. Let me make sure I make that perfectly clear. I just wish she would have been able to pursue a passion of hers. Any passion. Growing up I knew she was miserable.

I have worked some pretty miserable jobs over the years (Ride Operator at Cedar Point comes to mind -- vomit potential was an 8/10). I never really felt passionate about a job until I became an EMT. In a few short years it's become part of my identity.

I'm to the point now where I can't imagine doing anything else with my life.

And that scares the shit out of me.

I've found something that I truly believe I was meant to do. And I'm not ready to give it up. I am an intrepid saver of lives after all. *smirk* While I'm not ready to give it up, I don't have a choice right now.

There is a serious shortage of EMS jobs locally. I'm facing the fact that the job I'm so passionate about is not the job I'm going to be doing. I'm going to take what my Mother taught me about bucking up and "doing what you have to do to get by" and put it into practice.

It looks like I'm back to working with computers.

I don't know what that means for my blog here... I still have some EMS posts left in me, but I don't know for how much longer. I'm not saying goodbye, I'm just saying... Hell, I don't know what I'm saying.

I will still be living vicariously through all of you out there, living the dream. Even if you're saying it facetiously.

Post Script: Before my favorite commenter says something to the effect of "But Epi... You had an EMS job. You quit it. Now STFU already!" Let me say this. There were things going on at that company that I've not made public in my posts. Was I stressed out there? Yes. But there was more. I don't regret for one second getting out of that situation.