Maybe I am missing what you mean by "defining who I am".
I know who I am. I know I offer good in this world.
I will try to explain a little of what I have been feeling.
Ex. When the tones go off at work and the call is for a basement fire, you start preparing yourself for what you may run into. You ask yourself alot of questions. Is it an old house or new house?
Are the ceilings going to be 7 or 8 feet tall ( big difference in the amount of heat your going to face)
Is it a finished basement or is it a storage area with flamables stacked to the ceiling?
Did it start by misplaced hazards or did someone start this?
Who is second truck due and will it be 4 minutes or 10 before they are there?
And in the back of your mind, there is the question most firefighters won't talk about. Will I be comming home from this call?
Your putting on your gear and doing your scene size-up from the info you have from dispatch. Trying to answer those questions. Most guys keep a picture of their family inside their helmet. I kept one of B and the Girls. Why your putting it on, at least I did, I would say to myself, bring me home safe for the girls.
Or you go to a call for a vehicle accident. You have a teen with so much head trauma because they didn't wear a seat belt you know they have brain damage. And you spend the next 45 minutes cutting the driver out of the vehicle.
You get back from these calls and all you want/need to talk to the one you love. Not always about the call but you do want to hear there voice. Now my mom is a great person...but not who I want to talk too after calls like these.
I haven't lost those feelings. It is still her and the girls I think of when I am getting ready to fight a fire or go on a medical on the highway or a shooting. It is her voice I want to hear.
I have had others who have tried to take that place since the break-up, but it does not ease me like it did with B. I've talked to these people, but after, I still want to call B.
