Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethern, be pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
1 Peter 3: 8-9
To the paramedic who responded the 9-1-1 call at Sobeys Prospect Street
just before 10 p.m. this evening,
Let me start by saying this: I get where you were coming from.
Your assessment of the situation was technically accurate: despite his claims, the subject of the call, a gentleman well-known in the community for his affinity to mouthwash, wasn't having a seizure.
The fire department didn't need to respond with lights-and-sirens and it was fair to deem the situation a non-emergency. In the sense of the word that requires that kind of response, it certainly was not.
What wasn't fair was the way you expressed that to all of us who were waiting with the man on the sidewalk outside the store when you arrived.
When you got out of the ambulance and made your way toward us, you smirked as you greeted him and made it known to all of us standing there that that was the fifth time a 9-1-1 call had been made for him today.
You looked at us - the young couple who had made the call and the older gentleman who crouched down next to him, trying to keep him calm while we waited - and told us not to worry, that it wasn't an emergency ("It's not a seizure if he says he's having a seizure," you said) and that dealing with situations like that is a "waste of time" for paramedics in Fredericton.
Then, you looked down onhim and told him to get up - you'd take him to the hospital, but you weren't going to treat it like an emergency.
The fire truck drove by and minutes later, you were gone, too.
I tried not to think too much about the situation, but as I made my way to the front of the store with my carton of eggs and bag of sliced almonds, I couldn't help but feel utterly unimpressed - and even a little bit angry - with the way you responded to the situation.
Like I said, I get where you're coming from - hospitals are crowded enough as is and the last thing we need is people there who don't need to be there - but what an incredible lack of professionalism to announce to a group of people in a very public place that a situation is "a waste of time." Maybe there's a time and a place for a candid assessment like that (although I'm not really convinced there is) but standing in front of a grocery store with people who took note of someone suffering and tried to help isn't it.
But a lack of professionalism wasn't the biggest issue to me: that honour goes to the total lack of compassion you displayed. Was the situation a medical emergency? No. But to say responding to call was a "waste of time" when it couldn't have been more clear the gentleman is dealing with several serious issues (most evident being addiction and homelessness, two incredibly complex problems which have become hot topics in our city in recent months) was such an uncaring response.
You are a public figure, someone people trust with their lives when they're in need. I understand where the thought came form but I couldn't be more disappointed with the way it was expressed. To put it simply, you had an opportunity act in love tonight and you blew it.
But not all is lost in this situation.
To the young couple and the gentleman who stayed until the ambulance arrived,
Thank you for the grace you showed - for making the call, for staying by his side until the ambulance arrived and for not indicating in any way that you agreed with the assessment of the paramedic.
Most of all, thank you for not deciding to care about another was not a "waste of time."
But oh, I am finding: that's not the way I want my story to end.
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do it all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31
It's been more than six months since I've had a drink.
I should back up a bit, because writing it out like that makes it seem like six months ago I was a raging alcoholic. That's not true.
By that point, I don't even think I'd call myself a social drinker. I'd have a fancy drink at a restaurant or a glass of wine at a special event. At parties, I'd up my limit a bit, but stick mostly to wine and drink only enough to get a little buzzed. And that was fine for me - actually, I would argue compared to the alternative, it was good for me. I was still able to have fun with my friends, enjoy the night and feel good the next day. It felt like a positive shift.
I didn't drink at all in high school nor was I interested, something I'm sure has a lot to do with the way I grew up. I saw the way alcohol robbed my father of everything he had - he spent all his money on beer, became totally dependent on it to function and ultimately, lost his family as a result. As a teenager, I knew I didn't want that.
I maintained that lack of interest in drinking during my first year of university. I was living away from home for the first time and even though a lot of the people around me in residence drank, I had other things on the go (school, work, the campus paper). I saw the effects of alcohol on my friends. Some people handled it well, sure, but the overwhelming majority didn't. If that wasn't enough, I wasn't old enough to buy my own booze and I was living in a city with two big universities and several smaller colleges. My experience working in the smoke shop taught me anyone who looks under the age of 25 should be ready to present identification. I could have easily found someone to buy for me, but I decided then that if I was going to drink, I was going to wait until I could buy for myself.
Which is what I did. The first few times weren't anything special. I quickly learned I didn't like beer but I didn't struggle when it came to mixing drinks. I learned what I liked (rum and gin, mostly) and what I couldn't tolerate (vodka. Oh, the awful, awful nights I had with vodka). I wouldn't say I fell into a party scene, but during my last three years of school, I drank on the weekend and went out to bars and parties. I never experienced a "hang over", at least not in the traditional sense. I can count on one hand the number of times I've thrown up due to drinking and I never woke up with a headache or anything like that. Just a little dehydrated and lethargic.
Haley: I don't think I'll ever feel better. Does this happen every time you drink?
Claire: (pause) Yes. Yes it does.
(Modern Family,Season 1, Episode 23 - Hawaii)
But while my body seemed to handle alcohol well, my emotions didn't. I wasn't a depressed drinker, but alcohol made me crave affection. When we went out, I'd dress for the occasion and revel in the attention I'd receive from guys. Even buzzed, the attention made me feel powerful and that's how I rationalized the really foolish decisions I found myself making when it came to guys. In my mind, I was the one controlling the situation. Without sharing too much information or delving too far into very personal territory, I can say it took several instances of heartbreak, of feeling dirty and cheap, used and let down to realize that wasn't true, it was never true and that using your body as a tool for control doesn't make you powerful - it turns you into an object, easy to break and throw away.
That's a whole other topic of discussion, though. This is a post about alcohol.
Luckily, that phase of my life didn't last very long. After a few awful 'relationships' - I use the term loosely - I met the guy who would become my boyfriend while working at a grocery store, starting out as friends, dating for about a month then becoming a couple in winter 2011. Right away, I knew the relationship was different than the ones I had in the past - he was (and is) thoughtful, kind, sweet and actually interested in my goals, dreams and passions. We're not a perfect couple and we don't always agree on everything, but we support one another, something I think has gone a long way to keeping our relationship strong almost two and a half years later.
This was shortly after we started dating. I've been told I look angry in this picture, but I don't see it. Truthfully, I just wasn't paying attention when it was taken.
Becoming part of a couple brought an end to the attention-seeking, affection-craving behaviour that came with a night on the town. I gained a new group of friends and while we still partied, it was different. It was fun again, not just another empty effort to fill some kind of void. During this time period, I finished university, started working a full-time job in my field and even though that transition into adulthood meant I was a little less interested in the bars and parties, I still had a few drinks at get togethers and, once in a while, let myself go completely, justifying it by saying I didn't do it often so it was OK.
But I also started taking "breaks" from drinking - the first, a month long stretch one July and another in the winter before going back to just a couple glasses of wine once in a while. It wasn't until Oct. 25, 2012 that I started to seriously question whether or not alcohol was something I wanted to be part of my life or not.
At that point, I had spent about six months reviving my faith, for lack of a better way to put it. After a couple wayward years, that incident with the homeless man under the tree sparked something in that sent me on a passionate pursuit of a deeper relationship with a God I'd been doing a pretty good job of ignoring. Throughout the process, I had really mixed feelings on drinking but I justified the odd glass of wine here and there saying I wasn't doing it to get drunk and there were many instances in the bible where wine was consumed, so it must be alright.
It wasn't something I wrestled with or thought too much about until Oct. 25, when I received a Facebook message from Trudy, a woman I used to babysit for, looking for information about St. Thomas University, the school I graduated from and the school her daughter was planning to attend in the fall.
The idea of Tiffany attending school in the same city I'm living in made me stop and think, for the first time in years, about the way I was living. I had a few regular babysitting clients, but without question, most of my time was spent at her house. It baffled me that the seven year old I used to hang out with on snow days was actually old enough to be going to university, but thanks to the marvel that is Facebook, I'm 100 per cent certain she's not a little girl anymore. She's all grown up now.
And the next stage of her journey is bringing her here, to Fredericton, where she'll get to study at my alma mater. Fredericton is a small city, so the chances of seeing one another - planned and unplanned - are high. And even though she's not a little girl anymore, as I read that message, I realized the root of my conflicted feelings on things like drinking stemmed from something very simple - a concern about what I was teaching others through my actions.
Young girls (and guys) today are exposed to so much questionable behaviour. Drinking and drug use has become a rite of passage and clothes keep getting smaller and smaller. All this behaviour is glorified, championed by celebrities and television and movies, and everything is so connected now thanks to cell phones that act more like small computers. We're sad when teenagers are killed in accidents, but we're rarely surprised if a line like "alcohol was believed to be a factor" is included in the newspaper write up. Teens walk around the mall wearing skin tight leggings as pants paired with shirts that don't leave anything to the imagination. And all of this is normal.
But just because it's normal doesn't mean it's good or even OK. And even though I fell for it, albeit not as hard as many others, it's important for me that I use that experience to get that across.
That means not wearing the too-short skirt or the bikini that leaves nothing to the imagination.
That means not spending every weekend of my life glued to a barstool or dirty dancing in a bar.
That means taking care of myself - eating well, working out and spending one-on-one time with God.
And yeah, for me? That means not drinking or doing drugs.
there is hope for me yet because God won't forget
all the plans he's made for me, I'll have to wait and see.
He's not finished with me yet.
Now, as a disclaimer, I should put it out there that I don't think I'm an authority on the moral high ground of alcohol use. That's a personal thing and I'm not really in a position to judge. But for me, it just doesn't line up with the things that are important to me. It doesn't serve me physically, it doesn't benefit me emotionally and I don't feel like it does anything to help my testimony.
(On a biblical level, there's likely an argument to be made from things like the fact that people drank wine in the bible (a less potent version than what we have today), that Jesus's first miracle was turning water into wine to keep the party going, that wine is still used in communion, etc. However, for me, I look at verses like Proverbs 20:1 (Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise) and Romans 14:21(It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak) for guidance on this.)
Being the only non-drinker in a crowd wasn't easy at first. I got a lot of questions in the beginning and there are some people who I know still don't exactly get it. It doesn't stop me from living my life, from having fun and now that I have a car, I don't really mind being the designated driver.
I don't feel like I'm missing out. I'm a little different, a little bit outside "normal" but that doesn't bother me.
I don't miss it at all. I feel good - physically, emotionally and spiritually - sober.
Tiffany,
In a couple months you're going to be making your way to university. Even though it's a city I know you're familiar with (you have family here), you're going to be on your own for the first time and that can be a challenge for even the strongest people. There will be pressures to fit in and follow the crowd.
I want you to know it's OK to not be "normal."
I want you to know it's OK to question what you see happening around you and it's OK to reject the things that leave your moral compass feeling scrambled.
I want you to know that if you do find yourself falling for the lies so many young women believe, you don't have to let them weigh you down. They don't define you, in the eyes of God or those who care about you most.
More than anything, I want you to know you are beautiful and so very loved. You're going to do amazing things and I can't wait to watch you shine.
Two are better than one ; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heart: but how can one be warm alone?
Ecclesiastes 4:9-11
I need to take a moment to say thank you to everyone for their kind words about the last post.
The feedback, in comments, in private messages and in face-to-face conversations, has been beyond anything I was expected when I sat down to write it. I appreciate each of you for taking the time to read what's been on my heart and I'm hopeful sharing a difficult piece of my testimony will help someone else someday.
I could not ask for better people to have in my life. God has blessed me and I'm so thankful for that.
when I thought hope had ended, I always find a little bit more.
It's not like I'm trying to be optimistic - if the truth be told, I'd rather dismiss it
and be free of the burden of living that hoping requires.
To bring my heart to every day
and run the risk of fearlessly loving without running away.
