Stormy Seas

“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

-Franklin D. Roosevelt (and others)

I have a way of talking about a subject, without directly talking about the subject, as you’ll find with most of my writings. The stories I tell are just parables… if you take them for face value, you’ll miss the bigger picture. I like speaking this way though… I find it to be safe. Being direct never goes over well.

The Water that Shapes You

I’ve been an EMT since 2010, after I randomly decided to get my license during my undergrad since it was offered as an elective. And in this time, I’ve spent the overwhelming majority of it being a single resource and in austere environments. I don’t know what it’s like working on a box, just what it’s like making an ad hoc gurney or trying to shove an airway into someone while in a giant dust bowl. But I’ve experienced what it’s like to have someone’s life in your hands several times… and that’s always made me view the world a little differently. I’ve never experience having that be someone I know though; that’s a different level of responsibility.

This is why I wish I could talk more candidly about my 11 years of experience in SAR… the things I’ve seen, the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met… Not because of some weird hero complex, but because I feel it’s shaped the way I view the world and who I am today.

In recent months, I’ve learned to absolutely love the suck. A few weeks ago, I summited Guadalupe Peak three times in less than a week: on a beautiful day, on an incredibly windy day, and one where ice crystals glittered the air as the wind whipped through the trees. I love it. This boat training I signed up for though, I was less enthused by. I wanted to be in the sucky, nasty, stormy water… I was just in too much of an emotional funk to really feel enthused by all of it. Any other day, I’d be excited by the prospect of becoming more hardened, but this time my capacity to save face wasn’t there. Still, I did it… and I’m happy I did.

I wish the people in my life could see me in these moments or could experience it themselves. I’m not the same person they see daily… this goofy, sensitive woman who is friendly to everyone. They don’t see the deeply confident version of me, the one who is so damn sure of who they are and what needs to be done. The one who is decisive and sure.

Practice Like You Fight

A runnel of water began to drip down the front of my helmet with every splash of the sea coming over the bow. I could taste it on my lips, which isn’t a pleasant experience knowing this water is pretty disgusting. We were all solemn that evening, I think we were all just tired from getting bucked around on the choppy water and just wanted to get these last evolutions over with. Maybe we were just a little full from dinner (which mine was just a simple Lunchable since my hunger has been gone lately). My pal, Jamie, laid on the floor next to my knees as we made the slow trip out to the training location, which I found oddly comforting being that we had grown so close as teammates that we could relax in each others presence.

I looked behind me at the other boats convoying out to the training area, their little green and red lights bobbing in the distance, the lights from the houses back at the dock becoming more and more distant. We’re out here on our own. Self reliant but a team.

It felt like we were storming the beaches of Normandy by night, huddled together, blasted by sea mist that sucks away your will to live with every degree that drops in temperature. In this crappy situation, I found excitement… a fiendish level of excitement. Yes… this was going to suck… and I liked that. I needed this hurt to numb the internal pain like a distraction. I wanted to grind and be gritty, and come out polished on the other side.

I had jumped in another inflatable rescue boat with my partner, Josh, as it was my turn to do my testing through a “S” curve. This is all standard stuff, and I had to demonstrate my handling skills in different courses, which at first annoyed me that I had to do this again. As annoyed as I was though, I sure took great pleasure at going through the twists and turns, cutting deep to the left with a hard twist of the throttle, then immediately darting right. Like sharpening a knife. As I said before, grinding away until perfection. Practice like you fight.

The rain began to come down hard in a torrential down pour, making the water around us look like a TV with static in the glow of our spotlights. It danced across the bay, filled the floorboards of our boat, and saturated my dry suit (which kept me toasty inside). I couldn’t see crap, but Josh and I shouted to each other to navigate to the mouth of the training course, the rain coming down so hard it stung my face. It was akin to standing fully clothed with your face directly below the shower head. We chuckled as I commented that this was bad ass. I embraced the suck.

I turned to make my next pass through the course, thrilled by the challenge, when suddenly night became day. My pupils constricted and I winched. What normally were silhouettes of the other boats and crew around me became briefly visible, followed shortly by the loudest crack of thunder I had heard in god knows how long.

For those of you who don’t know basic science… water and lightning don’t go together. Lightning and humans don’t go together because we’re mostly water. Lightning and humans and water and metal boats definitely don’t go together. We’re basically meat popsicles floating around in black water, waiting to get touched. The storm was on top of us. But we had planned for this. The weather wasn’t suppose to be this way, but we always know that the weather in the Gulf is never correct.

The team made me proud in our ability to collectively go to help each other. We hustled to load the boats with remaining people and get the hell out of dodge, although I kind of came off as a demanding asshole about it. I felt a little guilty afterwards with how direct I could be, but I also didn’t want to become BBQ’d on the bay.

We hauled ass back to the dock across the bay as fast as we could, skipping across the choppy water, feeling every single bump along the way. I’m pretty sure I put the boat through more than it was originally intended to do as I plowed it through the waves at full throttle. Water continued to fill the floorboards from the rain and splashes of the waves. I opened the scuppers in a feeble attempt to let it drain. We were just 200 yards from our destination when I looked back at the other boats, wondering if I needed to turn around and help the others once I dropped my group off when the motor made a high pitch squeal and suddenly lost power. It was as if we hit a wall, from the change of wave direction. Our boat went from a bat out of a hell to an absolute slug in a matter of 5 seconds as water poured in over the bow. We were too heavy… our progress went to a stand still… we were in a bad way with a storm bearing down on top of us.

And this is where the lessons of life begin… this is where true learning happens.

I used to wonder what goes through someone’s mind when they’d jump on grenades for others. I mean, I tried to put myself in their shoes and really I couldn’t convince myself that I had the courage to do it. I wanted to live too much. But for the briefest moment, when trying to figure out what to do and what the better odds would be, I convinced myself that it would be me who has to get off this boat so it doesn’t sink us all. This isn’t some “hero” “pat me on the back” bullshit, but just an honest assessment of my own thought process.

I didn’t give it a second thought, truthfully. I didn’t have a single moment in my mind where I weighed any of their lives against each other, nor mine, it was just… natural? But this also is NOT a great quality to have. I have a habit of self-sacrificing… it’s not noble.. It’s not good to be this way in every facet of your life. It has to be at the right moments. Wisdom is knowing when.

I looked at the wooden pier a few yards away, and considered swimming to that just so the boat could keep going. They have kids… they have families… I don’t. It’s my responsibility to get them home safe as their leader. But just as I was calculating the viability of my solutions and troubleshooting the boat issues, the prop got a bite of non-aerated water and we punched through the wall of opposing force as the team shifted back.

It’s so odd, that just mere moments before, I was annoyed to even have to be there. I was pissed off, in a bad mood, didn’t want to be around anyone or see anyone. It was cold and nasty, and I was sleep/food deprived and having my own existential crisis. I was resentful to be here… to take my precious time away for free again. I blamed this lifestyle for my current life’s problems, which the fault is only my own. I wanted to go home, be done with all of this, and return to my house where I could brood and sulk in peace.

And that’s the honest, ugly truth of it all. I know most people think I’m just this positive, enthusiastic person who lifts people up… but I couldn’t even lift me up. I know some leaders never show their cards, always put on a strong face but I was really weak that afternoon as I drove to training. A shell. A husk. Empty. I only gained that strength back from facing this storm.

I laughed it off and made a joke about it once we were all back on the dock, but secretly it made me feel some kind of way. My boatmate, Jacob, gave me a high-five when we got to shore and he doesn’t understand how much that meant to me. How doing good by my team, pushing through something difficult, and experiencing making difficult choices brought out this beast inside me again. That confident, sure of herself woman. The one who had been hiding in the shadows for a long time. The one who shrunk herself to fit in.

On the drive home that night, I tried to intellectualize it: “Oh it’s because I had the dry suit on so I’d be the warmest,” “well I mean someone would have gotten me eventually,” “I would have gotten criticized if I made anyone else get out.” Which they were all true, but that’s not why.

But really it just boils down to the fact that I cared. I genuinely cared about the three other people in my boat and took full responsibility for them. I didn’t want to fail them as a leader, a teammate, and a friend like I had been failing the people that matter to me in my life as of late. If you look at it from my shoes, and you had no other choice but to remove one person from the boat so that the most could make it to shore, why would the leader NOT jump overboard? It’s the only solution. Period.

It’s because I had become so sentimental these past few months. I had become so vulnerable and sensitive to loss and grief. Despite me coming off as aloof all weekend, I really did care all along… a lot.

Taming The Tempest

I can weather any storm so long as I take charge of it. So long as I have confidence in me, and that confidence comes from experience. It’s not going to be comfortable… it’s going to be downright ugly and I’m going to falter as I charge through. I am going to let the people I love most in my life down, I am going to get a little lost along the way. I’m going to desperately hold onto something when I need to let it go and hope it flows back to me.

It’s easier said than done though, as I can only control what I can… I can’t control the weather, I can’t control other people, I can only control me and this boat. I can only control me and how I react to a situation.

That’s what I find so difficult: staying the course when I want to turn back. I want to go back to my old ways. I want to reach out. I want to state my case and stand strong in what I believe. But sometimes you have to be patient, just like the boat. My first reaction was to sacrifice myself, when all I needed was some time and a moment to troubleshoot. I just needed to take a deep breath and it sorted itself out.

Maybe I needed to troubleshoot my life like I did with the boat. Then I was on my way again. And it was less damaging for all involved that way. I didn’t sacrifice myself, I didn’t sink us all, and we made it to our final destination. We grew together. I just need to be patient.

I’m trained on taking control of situations and making quick decisions based on threats to life and safety… and in many ways this feels like a threat to my existence. But not all threats are the same even though it FEELS like my life is on the line.

Wisdom is knowing the difference: knowing when to let a situation unfold vs. when to act decisively.

But we’re still talking about the boat right? I’m not talking in parables… right?

At the end of the day, smooth seas, a smooth life, never made me a better person. Never made me more resilient.