I feel like Michael Corleone...

...I got pulled back in!



For just about 11 years, I wrote for a national EMS professional journal, titled interestingly enough, EMS Magazine. This was the place where I took my baby steps into the world of freelance writing, taking whatever skills I may have naturally possessed, and developing them with the guidance of an experienced editor. I wrote everything from educational pieces, to personal stories, to book reviews, all the while exploring a skill I never really knew I had.

In 2000, I wrote my last piece for the magazine. It was entitled, "What Are You Prepared To Do?" and dealt in part with the idea of who we were as EMS professionals, our identity, and how it had been co-opted by other emergency services, such as fire departments. While I left EMS behind the year before, I was still in healthcare, but that would be my final article. There was no real reason to write for the magazine anymore, and with my depression starting to bubble, I think somewhere inside I was thinking, "It's time to get away from this profession in every way."

Flash forwards 10 years: Now, having come to terms with so much of what I experienced, I feel I can go back and write for them, but from a detached position, which actually may be something of a blessing. I shot my former editor (who is still there) some recent clips of my work, she was bowled over, and was going to throw some story ideas my way, when I threw one at her. I'll be writing a two part piece that will cover how EMS personnel deal with impending retirement. It will be in their online edition. Part 1 will be out in June, and then part 2 in July. Even better? They're going to pay me. I didn't always get paid for what I wrote for them in the past.

So, here I go, diving back into the world I left behind. I'm thinking a little of Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years."

"I met my old lover
On the street last night
She seemed so glad to see me
I just smiled
And we talked about some old times
And we drank ourselves some beers
Still crazy after all these years
Oh, still crazy after all these years"

You get the idea, right?