Jump until you stay up.

That's a philosophy that I learned last night from my good friend Timothy. It applies to this blog and life, and isn't that the ultimate goal? I've tried to do blogs before, but I could never keep up the interest to maintain them. But I've been reading all my CBR friends' blogs for a while now, and I'm jealous. So, here's the blog.

I was talking to Tim last night about a late-night panic attack I had a couple of days ago. I was thinking about something my brother said to me, in an effort to get me to clean up at my parents' house for Christmas. I was trying to convince him that we had cleaned enough and that no one would care about the pile of comics that had been there since I was in high school. As he left the room, he said to me, "Mom and Pops won't be around forever, you know." He just meant that I wouldn't be able to keep storing stuff at their house forever. But that thought resonated for me, late that night, trying to sleep.

"Oh my god", I thought, "I'm running out of time. I have to grow up now."

Which scared me half to death. How long before I don't have a safety cushion to fall back on when my plans don't work out? How many times can I try a job, without it being a career choice? What happens when I get fired and I don't have a home to go back to?

Tim says that for us people who have older siblings, it's easy to forget that we're not supposed to do everything right the first time. We do still have to make our own mistakes. And learn from them on our own, without somebody there to explain it to us along the way.

I think he's dead right. And it's something that I hadn't thought much about before. I've always known myself to be the kind of person who tries to get stuff right the first time, but I hadn't realized where it came from. That guy has made an astute fucking observation.

I'm taking an e.m.t. training class during the winter quarter at a local community college. For those of you who don't know, e.m.t. stands for Emergency Medical Technician. The easiest way to describe the job, is that they're the guys who drive ambulances. AT the end of the class, there is a certification test, and upon passing that, I will be qualified to apply for work as an e.m.t.

I decided upon this path the night that my last girlfriend dumped me. We ended up talking for about an hour after she gave me the word, and it was the most we ever communicated. Strange, how that works. But there was something she said to me that really affected me. She told me that it seemed like I was directionless in life, and that wasn't working for her. Well, she was right. I was directionless (not that I needed her to say it out loud). That night, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do in my life. And maybe this stinks to high nerd heaven, but I realized that my dream job was to be a superhero.

So, I started thinking about what jobs would be the closest to that. Cop, fireman, paramedic. The problem is that I don't have the level of physical ability required for those jobs. But, then I did some research and found out about e.m.t.'s. I'd still be working in a position where I would be able to directly help people (and even save lives), but I wouldn't be running through smoke-filled buildings or chasing criminals through backyards. This was it. I found what I wanted to do.

But when I had my panic attack, I started thinking about all the responsibility I'd be taking on with this job. And not just job responsibility, but people's lives in my hands. That really scared me. What if I couldn't remember a minute detail, and made a bad situation worse? What if I did something wrong and let somebody die, or even killed them?

I got really panicky.

But, there's no way out of responsibility in this world. And if I have to hold that weight on my shoulders, then I might as well do something meaningful with my time. I've taken a lot from the world. It's time I gave something back.