Who Am I?

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“Who am I?”

Every person asks themselves this multi-faceted question hoping for a clear-cut, simple answer. It’s an impossible question to find a single conclusion, as time moves on, experiences shape us, and we become different each day.

Why is it in this society, everything comes back to how much money we make or what we do for a living? This unconscious societal belief that our entire purpose on earth is to make as much money as possible before we die. Sure, I like to have money, as most humans do. No one wants to stress about bills and expenses. I don’t believe that human beings were meant to spend their days in cubicles under fluorescent lights, printing memorandums, and talking about things that bring them no joy whatsoever. We work so that we can live, fully and freely. I see so many that live just to work and miss out on the part about being a human being; not a human doer.

I got my first job when I was 13 years old. I was a bagger at a local grocery store in the ever- wealthy Marin county, California. My four-hour shifts were summed up in two words, “paper or plastic?” That grocery bagging netted me a cool $89 every payday just enough to buy a bag of weed and some new sneakers.

I bounced around working through my high school years at deli’s, a motorcycle shop, and construction work. I had no second thoughts about why I took a job. It was always to make a few bucks to pay for whatever my teenage self may have wanted at the time. My dad would always tell me, “find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I never knew what that meant. Who loves to work? Work is work, plain and simple. The only jobs I dreamed about as a kid that I knew I would “love” was being a pro baseball player or a movie star. People would tell me that I better get good grades and a college degree as a back-up plan. I disagreed.

Why would I waste my time going to school doing things I hate just to have a backup plan? I never understood the adult logic behind any of this. It’s easy to see now that I was young, immature, and reckless.

My life took a 5-year detour when I became addicted to heroin. Time went on, but I stood still in my addiction. I was so fortunate to be able to finally bottom out in New York City in 2010. I was pursuing my “dream” at the time when it all came crumbling down on my head. I had moved out there to go to a film and acting school with the hopes of making a career out of my creativity and charm. My disease caught up with me and I decided to try sobriety one last time, dropping out of school, and moving back to California to get myself help.

Over the past 10 years I have been clean and sober. I got married in 2013, a year after my first daughter was born. We welcomed our second daughter to the world in 2016. I have been blessed in my life ever since I got into recovery. The simple fact that I am not even supposed to be here is astonishing to me. Quite frankly, I should be dead. Yet, I still long for something more in my heart.

Through my sobriety, I found out that I can work hard even if I don’t like what I am doing. I’ve had some jobs that made me long for the days of bagging groceries. I have shown up and suited up for everyone, pushing aside any feelings of needing a purpose. I knew inside me something had been brewing. As I grew in my recovery and spirituality, I felt my purpose on this earth became clearer. I wanted to help people. How? I wasn’t sure.

I found work in the field of addiction treatment for 8 years. Starting from administrative work, moving up to a counselor, and then owning my own facility. I was deeply passionate about this work. With time and the uglier side of running a business, I burnt out. I took a left turn in 2015, while still working in addiction, deciding to pursue my EMT and fire-service career, as I had become driven about pursuing. I had always looked up to men and women in the fire service and I thought I had what it took to be a good firefighter. I completed all the courses and went through the fire academy with a fervor. I was hungry and no one was going to stop me.

My business was getting off the ground right as I graduated from the fire academy, requiring a great deal of my attention also. My wife was pregnant with my second daughter and I was utterly overwhelmed. Two years passed and I was still applying for firefighter positions and my business was failing. Life served me a large slice of humble pie and it tasted like crap. We had to close our business, I was unemployed and now had two kids at home to feed.
“Who am I?” I asked myself.

I prayed for guidance every day. I found work with my father in construction. The last time I had worked with him I was 18, this time I was 30. I enjoyed working in construction. I got to be outside, good hours and good money in it, yet I still felt that void inside me. I had to make money, so I stuck with it for a bit while continuing to pursue my fire-service career.

Finally, I landed a position as a part-time volunteer with a local department filled with some of the best people I know. It felt like it was my foot in the door. I was sure this was now my path. I committed to paramedic school in the fall of 2019. This was my golden ticket to a full-time career in the fire service.

School started and I jumped right in. Volunteering at the firehouse and going to school became my life. I was positive it was going to pay off.

Life had other plans.

My youngest daughter fell critically ill a month into paramedic school. She required immediate hospitalization for almost a month. Two ambulance rides, two different hospitals, one ICU, two surgeries, and one blood transfusion later, we were finally home. I had to pull out of school to care for my daughter. I took time away from the fire department because my family needed me. My mind was in no place to help others. I was traumatized. The whole event took my family and our little world, tossed it in a blender, and flipped the switch on. Most days we could barely get out of the house just to walk the dog around the block or even to get our older daughter to and from school. Sheer terror our little one may get sick again dominated us. It was the single worst experience of my life. I eventually had to pull away from the fire department with a back injury. Back at square one.

“Who am I?” I asked myself again.

What will we do now to pay the bills? We are going to have to sell the house and move. We can’t afford to live here.

Fear began to create a thousand invisible enemies inside my head. Before I commenced to take action, I was paralyzed from the fear of failure. I’d lay awake in bed at night ruminating on what to do. Days would go by and then I began to write. The piece of me that I could not reach before poured out. It felt so cathartic. Putting all my fears and frustrations on paper felt like I was taking them out of my head and releasing them for good.

I fast forward a few more months into the present. Day 68 of a pandemic. No work, no plans, some money, and a little bit of hope is what I have right now. The strange thing is that I am not alone in this uncertainty. This is normal across the country. With financial fears and a future that is unknown, people are questioning everything.

So, to answer my own question, “who am I?”

The only thing I can do is find that truth in my actions every day. It is not what I do for a living or how much money I have that makes me who I am. It is who I am in my heart when everything around me is uncertain that I measure myself from. When life is spinning out of my control, do I wake up each day and try to be good to my family and the world? Do I continue to try to grow as a human? Do I trust in my gut that we will get through whatever comes our way?

Or do I let fear guide the ship?

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When I let fear guide, life becomes ugly. I have been battle-tested over the last few years. My family has dealt with a fair share of fear. Not once did I allow that fear to shy me away from what I was supposed to be in that moment. If I can learn from each life experience that I encounter, then maybe I can be a better human. I still don’t know what I am meant to do or where my life is headed. I don’t have all the answers yet and I do still have questions. If I can keep looking, asking and growing, then I am okay if that’s who I am.