Legit interest of mine...or just remnants of my ex?

I know where you’re coming from about missing the action. Late in my career as a nurse who’d done everything, including trauma, I took a much higher paying position in cardiac research. It consisted of seeing patients in the morning and doing research documentation, meetings, etc. in the afternoon. I loved the fact that I was working for the greater good, I worked with a great team of researchers, and I found the money very helpful. But it was boring as hell. So, I worked some Fridays and Saturdays in the ER just to keep my blood up. But that wasn’t enough.

Early in my career I’d taken four levels of disaster courses from the local Red Cross. These are the courses a medical person must take to get on the on-call list whenever there is a disaster. Where I lived we had hurricanes. While I was in research, I renewed those certifications. My docs were very good about giving me time off when I was called up. In the beginning, I was the medical person in evac shelters. It wasn’t exactly field expedient medicine, but it relieved the ennui of being tied to a desk. Everybody has to make their bones. Eventually I was sent to flood disasters in the Midwest which were much more demanding and closer to what I was after.

I got on a list with a non-religious group out of Boston called Partners in Health, headed up by a doc whom I’d worked with earlier. They do both emergency disaster work and run long-term clinics in poverty stricken areas around the world. They gave me more disaster training. Then they sent me to Haiti for four months a few days after the earthquake in 2010. Boy, did I get my fix. When I got back to my regular job, I was definitely ready to ride a desk for awhile. Then they asked me back again when a cholera epidemic broke out the summer after the earthquake. In both instances, I worked with some of the finest people of many disciplines, including those outside of medicine, I have ever met. It was great.

I was able to hold my position in research and take these amazing, short vacations into an entirely different world and do things way beyond my defined legal scope in the US, then come back and be a regular civilian again. It made the boredom of research tolerable.

If you’ve kept up your EMT or paramedic certs, you might want to give PIH a call. Your skills are required.

You’re dwelling on her, and that’s unhealthy. The excitement and helicopter story is backstory and not really all that relevant.

You still bear her a drudge – you’re not over her. That’s the real problem. Somehow, you need to address that. The emergency work – the thrill – that’s a side issue.

So to answer your question directly: Remnants of the ex. Deal with that first.

^^I disagree with a lot of that. Upon examination, I am the product of many exes. My interest in literature and cuisine, my appreciation of the arts in general, my views on politics, my introduction into nursing, all began or were influenced heavily, in a large part, by feelings of knowledge and cultural inadequacy to exes. Some of them were abusive. But if it weren’t for them and their challenges, I could have very possibly spent my life in a very narrow corridor of ambition-less self-indulgence and ignorance. A fucking dilettante. We learn a lot from our male friends, but in order to have any relationship at all with a woman, you must take her seriously, even the ones who turn out not so good. That’s why their memories stick with us so long.

Maybe. But you talked of loving “helicopters and the whole ‘rescue scene’ in general” before you were with your ex. You liked that kind of thing before, so it’s not just the influence of your ex. She just ignited your want to do it again.

First, you need to stop seeing your jobs through your ex’s eyes. She certainly was a judgmental bitch, wasn’t she? Everything except what she does is boring? Ha!

Do you find your current work fulfilling? Useful?

I would try really hard to seperate your feelings from hers before making a drastic career change.

@Espiritus_Corvus has some excellent things to say about this. Read what he wrote carefully.

I remember that you wrote before, but I will have to search for your old questions to remind myself of exactly what you’re doing now. Are you still in the medical field?

I second what @marinelife mentioned: now is not the time to make a life-altering decision while you are still so fresh from realizing the influence your ex placed on you. You need some time. I will add that you need some counseling, too. Find a good therapist, and talk to him/her. Spill your guts. Let a professional help you work out what you want to do. Listen to the professional’s unemotional opinion. You need to talk to someone who is not emotionally attached to your situation.

Edit to add: I went back and looked at your old questions, and I remembered. The crux of the matter is your relationship with yourself. You have had many exciting accomplishments, but as you yourself wrote, you let your girlfriend put you down for not being as exciting as her, and this put down made you feel bad. You need counseling to help you overcome allowing others’ opinions to override your own self-worth. Going to counseling can seem scary at first. It makes many people think they are weak, because they need help. On the contrary, it requires a great deal of strength to ask for help. Be strong. Ask for help. This question and your other ones are a sign you are willing to ask for help. You are actually very strong.

Here’s what happens in counseling: a good therapist will not tell you what you should work on or what you’re not doing to the best of your ability. The therapist will listen to you and guide you with questions so that you work out for yourself what’s best for you. A therapist is not there to give your directions. Instead, they help you find your own direction.

Hey guys thanks for your answers, Im not sure if I have to @Hawaii_Jake @marinelife @CunningFox @Espiritus_Corvus to see what I write, but just got back from working in the desert for a week.

One good thing is I am nearly over her in a true way, when I broke up with her and even after I still ‘wanted’ her, still a degree of inferiority.
Over time it became anger/hate, with what I realize is a degree of envy, she was doing something ‘exciting’ and I felt like I was wasting my time (I work as a field scientist, its kind of cool but really boring at time) so what I realize is that my ENVY/HATE for her I think may be a reflection of myself that I am not happy where I am.

I see someone who wanted something and went and got it, and its a reminder that I have NOT done that. That on some level, as utterly VAIN as she is rubbing my face in it, strutting around in her flight suit everywhere, that as mad as it makes me that she wears her flight suit to a funeral to show off (or thats how I interpret it) that she is proud of what she did, and I do not have something I can show off and be like ‘I did this’.

@ConfusedFrank Good insights. I think a therapist could be helpful to you in sorting out all of your feelings.