In For a Penny...

Today is Friday. On Tuesday, four days from now, I will don the world's least flattering outfit and head to my first class for EMT training. There are ways in which I have had a gestation period with the whole experience: last month I attended a generic orientation for the community college, and used my trip out to the campus as an excuse to pick up the uniform shirts we have to be wearing on Day One. I paid for my classes a day or two later. I had my physical for the program a few days ago, which included the first in a series of Hepatitis B vaccines as well as a drug screening. Yesterday my husband picked up my required books for me while I went to an army-navy store to purchase the rest of the uniform (navy blue pants, cargo-style; black belt; smooth-toed boots). Actually, the boots have to be sent from a near-by store because they didn't have my size, so today I will get the boots, as well as pick up the health form that will have the results of my drug screen.

But each day it gets a little more real. I flipped through a couple of the books yesterday, one of which is the workbook that needs to be filled out for clinical runs, the other of which is the book that explains vehicle extrication. They involve rules--rules like you must address everyone as Mr. or Ms., that you can't argue about whether or not your attire is acceptable, don't wear jewelry or perfume, the cargo uniform pants are actually not acceptable for the clinical runs (you must wear navy plain-front pants instead), if it's cold outside you can wear the school-approved EMS outerwear shirt, your socks must be black.

I used to be a pseudo-boho. The woman who would turn out to be my best friend in college (and with whom I am still extremely close) admitted that the first time she saw me she thought I was a drug dealer. I love tie-dye anything. I love dream catchers. But these rules don't faze me. There are ways in which public service, such as police work, being a member of a fire department, being an EMT, is much like the military. There just isn't room for mistakes or inconsistency, there isn't time to ponder or debate when timing is everything. I suppose it's like many things in life: you have to learn the rules of grammar, or art, or music, before you can play with them or introduce any kind of finesse. I know there is an art to being a great--well, a great anything. But the rules have to come first.

That's something I could not have swallowed, let alone embraced, years ago. I was anti-establishment all the way. I questioned everything. Maybe I've gotten more conservative as I've gotten older, or maybe I just understand the world differently. Maybe, I hope, I actually understand the world more fully. I would not send my own children to a school where they had to wear a uniform, because I don't believe that that's what childhood or education is about. Uniforms are to make the teachers' and administrators' lives simpler; I do not believe they teach the children a damn thing. And that means that particular place of education is putting convenience before the needs of the children.

But childhood is supposed to be a time of questioning, of trying to make sense of the world while at the same time discovering oneself. If a child comes to school dressed inappropriately, that is a teachable moment. It takes time--someone will have to have a conversation with that child about why his or her choice of attire is inappropriate, and there will be a give-and-take. But that teaches the child so many things in that one interaction: that he or she is worth engaging in conversation, that his or her viewpoint matters, that he or she is being heard. And then he or she must listen, respect an other's viewpoint, and take the time to digest the reasons for not being allowed to dress that way, even if he or she doesn't agree.

But I am not getting trained as an EMT so I can have conversations with my superiors about how having to wear navy blue is not allowing me to express my individuality. I am getting trained as an EMT because I want to learn how to help people in an emergency. The best way to train people to do that is to make rules that must be followed, and spend precious time on things that matter. If what I wear matters to me, I should pick a different option. After all, as I said to the young woman from whom I am buying a pair of the world's ugliest boots for $100, I clearly am not going into this profession for the fashion.

Well, this topic was a digression. Because even more than the rules that at one time would have seemed arbitrary and ridiculous, I was struck by the scope of an EMT's experience, even just an EMT Basic. The two words that come to mind most frequently when I think about this particular journey are excited and terrified. I might get to hold a little girl's hand all the way to the hospital to reassure her and help her feel less frightened; I might see someone bleed to death. I might get to assist in childbirth; I might have to support a woman who's just been told her husband is dead. I might have to help fold back the hood of a car in order to get someone out of the driver's seat. I might have to hear that I did something wrong or something stupid. I might spend a 12-hour shift sitting in the seat of an ambulance reading a book or watching the rain fall.

And it all starts Tuesday.