October 12, 2006

We have gone from summer (hot yesterday) to winter (high in the upper 40's today) in 24 hours. As quickly as the weather changes, so can our lives. In EMS you learn that life can turn on a dime...one minute your whole life is before you....the next your life is shattered amidst crumpled metal or by a clot cutting off the supply of blood to your heart. There are no guarantees. I am fortunate. I have had the opportunity to think about what I want to do and say in the last few years of my life, and I have taken a big step towards that end:
This morning I turned in my resignation from PHI Dove Flight. I am leaving the career I love. This is my chance to demonstrate that I am more than "what I do"....we all should be more than what we do, but it is so easy to go through life defining yourself by your job, or other external influences. This is my chance to eek out the joy in life's simple things that I have missed by working so much. Maybe I'll find time to scrapbook some of my 1000's of photographs. At the very least, maybe I will LOOK at every one of them again. I have some wonderful memories, and the happiest of those memories are times I spent with my children...not times I was working. Oh, sure, I've had fun at work and I've cared deeply for some of the people I work with, but when I look back and wish for "time slowed down" it isn't for more time at work, but more time hugging my kids, playing with them, being a mom.
If I could slow down time it would be to enjoy -- no fully cherish -- the people in my life. From now on I resolve to do my best to do just that. I'm now out of excuses!
I will miss my career more than I can say, as I will miss many of the wonderful, talented and intelligent people I have worked with these past two-and-a-half years. I have learned so much, and still had so much to learn. Now I get to figure out new ways to keep my brain sharp, and my mind clear. Drip calculations for fun????
Today truly is the first day of the rest of my life.....how I spend it is up to me.