What is Running From Safety?

So what exactly is Running From Safety?

I used to think that it was what I spent the later part of childhood and early adulthood doing - basically literally running from safety. I migrated towards just about every self-destructive mode of behavior that you could imagine, yet somehow I couldn't bear to hear four little words from my mom: "You have disappointed me." Those words would crush me because I knew how well I deserved them. So I learned how to run faster and more quietly. Pretty soon I lost myself. I wound up in Hell.

Then I made it back.

Now I've discovered a whole new meaning to those three little words. I watched my mom. I learned from my sister. I discovered that sometimes to learn to fly you have to step from the safe edge of the cliff.

I climbed that cliff - all the way to the top. I had started at the bottom by getting dismissed from University - twice. Now that took talent! Actually the first time I was running. The second time, well, that's another story but I was trying to get back on my feet. During the summer I worked as a pool manager, and each day I'd pass a rose seller on the street corner and think to myself that that was going to be me one day. I'd buy roses when I could.

My first length up the cliff was getting through EMT school - I figured that as an EMT I would not wind up selling roses on the street corner. My first run after I graduated was a hit & run. It was my rose seller. There was nothing that we could do for her. Mom told me that maybe she was one of Buddy's Angels, and that she'd done what she had been sent to do so she was able to go home. It still left a hole.

The next length up the cliff was getting back into college & getting my degree. Three years and another city later mom made me go to my graduation because she never thought that she'd see it. It was a school and family joke for awhile that I'd been dropped off for a Physics final in full gear by the volunteer fire department that I worked with, straight from a fire reeking of smoke. I graduated though with a double Bachelor's.

Another length of the cliff passed and I found myself working in a field that I truly loved. It had been 18 years since I crossed over into it, the call was brutal, we were getting busier, and many times I'd call my husband to tell him that I'd be sleeping at the hospital. Then a hand-hold crumbled - I was driving home one morning after working two 23 hour shifts. I needed to take my meds and I thought that I was fine but I fell asleep. The car was totaled and I was released to my husband - a nurse. Evidently I did *not* want to go back to the hospital. My director put me back on call that evening after giving me the rest of the day off - the next three days I don't remember, only that I was taking care of patients.

Something had to change. Stay at the top of the rock (there was nowhere else to go.... or was there?) It was safe up there. Yeah, right. Not for me, not for my patients. If I can't make a simple decision like was I safe to drive, and we had no place where we could get some real rest then it was time to jump.

I jumped.

And fell.

And flew.

I had no idea what to do or what, if anything I was worth when I took that leap from the safety of the everyday of my job, but I learned.

I went back to "class" - online - and got certified as a medical coder. Then I got offered a position (from home). Now I code, audit, teach and love just about every minute of it! There's always more to learn if I want and I am in control of my own schedule. 

I ran from safety just like my mom did - she went back to school at 55 and had her PhD by 65, just like my sister did - left a position at a college and found another one half way across the country and has become a better teacher than even my mom was, and will keep running as long as I can!