Esteemable Acts

The last few weeks has got me feeling some kind of way. Between what I was feeling before, watching the events unfold in Afghanistan, seeing my friends/family who served that campaign become crushed, and then learning that a buddy of mine passed away I’ve been even more somber. There’s a lot to break down with all of these things…

First and foremost, what’s happening in Afghanistan is a mixed bag of nuts in terms of emotions. The video of folks climbing onto the C-17, then falling off it after it took off were so palpable… reminiscent of the pictures we saw 20 years ago when American citizens chose to jump from the twin towers instead of being burned alive. I could write an entire blog on those images alone, but that’s not the purpose of this blog. There is something to be said about witnessing human desperation right before your eyes… makes you question your own situation and awakens a shared humanity in us all. If those images DON’T stir something inside you like that… well then, maybe this blog is for you.

As for those service men and women who feel a mix of emotions… I can’t speak for you, as there are elements to your story that I will never understand. Instead, I leave it to publications like The Havok Journal to convey that (which I HIGHLY recommend you read some of the works on there).

For weeks now, I’ve had this foreboding feeling. I told you all in two previous blogs that there was this overwhelming sense of sorrow or emptiness that was inside me. This happens all the time, my gut tells me something is going to happen soon, another loss, and it does. My gut has never been wrong before, so when my friend Diana asked me if I had heard about our friend/coworker Will the first thing that came to mind was “he’s dead isn’t he?” but of course you don’t just throw that out there right off the bat… that wouldn’t be socially acceptable, but that’s what I thought. You just know…

When my friend Jessica called me, before I even picked the phone up I knew Destiny was dead… because of the tone in her words three weeks prior.

When my ex girlfriend took off to visit Louisiana, I knew she’d leave me, because I could feel her start to go back into the same stupid ass cycle with her ex-husband.

My mom’s 3AM phone call one December morning, I knew something happened to my brother, because he’d be riding motorcycles everywhere.

The thing about all of these scenarios is I always had this foreboding feeling just prior to. “You’re coming to me with bad news… I’ve been waiting…” I just had a feeling I was going to lose someone I know, and I know that this wave of loss isn’t quite over yet.

I knew Will when I worked at VG and he was working for the state of New Mexico. He was instrumental in getting our agencies together to solve infrastructure issues that affected our operations at Spaceport. Yesterday, our buddy Scooter and I reminisced about the first time we ever met Will in person after we all got along with him so well through the various conference calls we had. Scooter describes in the best, “here we were expecting this agent wearing 5.11 tactical shirts and suddenly Will appears wearing trail running shoes, thick ass glasses, and a scruffy beard like he just rolled out of a Whole Foods.” This is exactly what made Will so damn endearing: he was an absolute bad ass at his craft, but was the kindest and most caring guy you’d ever meet.
When I left the company, he jumped ship and took over my old job a year after I had left, which made me so damn happy to know as I knew he’d take it to a level I never could. When I left VG, I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to anybody, including my partners at the other agencies; I distinctly felt like shit because I never got to explain to Will why I was gone. I remember digging through boxes, setting up my new office at the AFRL, and finding his card. I was tempted to shoot him an email and let him know where I ended up going, but after I left a lot of folks stopped talking to me… I was ostracized. I never heard a single word from some of the people I cared so deeply for, so I figured he’d probably formed a negative opinion of me as well.

Earlier this year, when I got a friends request from him on Facebook, I was floored. It meant the absolute world to me that he went out of his way to seek me out and reconnect with me. Not only did he just add me, but he went out of his way to encourage me during one of my most critical times in my self-destruction and rebirth. He didn’t owe me this, he didn’t owe me anything, but he always went out of his way to send me words of encouragement and share positive vibes. It was infectious… in a world full of political turmoil and anger, Will was always a bastion of positivity.

“Go give em hell boss..”

“You’ll rock everybody’s shit, boss.”

He messaged me on day and told me that I did an outstanding job, and as I said in my Facebook post about him, he’ll never know how that message lifted such a huge burden off me that I had been carrying for YEARS.

I carry a huge debt of regret, as we were suppose to meet up several times but the cards never aligned. Two weeks ago, he offered me to stay at his place so long as he could pet my doggos. We tried to meet up for dinner, then breakfast before I drove my dogs and the rest of my stuff to Houston. I was eager to not have a car full of two, annoying dogs anymore (and a shit ton of dog hair) so we never made it happen. I knew I’d be back through Las Cruces in September, so I thought I had time then. I WILL REGRET THAT FOREVER. When Will found me on Facebook after I disappeared from VG, he had been nothing but uplifting and encouraging to me… right when I needed it the most. MAKE TIME FOR THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE TIME FOR YOU!

These days, I am a believer that people come into your lives at the right time for a reason. Will came back into my life and was out just as quickly, but his impact during that time was huge as is the theme that many people have shared on his Facebook in his passing. He came in during the middle of my life crisis, and just got it. He understood this entire frustrating transition/rebirth phase I was going through, as he’d been there too. He got it… “I lost a lot following my dream as well so don’t think the universe is targeting you,” he tells me.

Will re-appeared in an instant, and made one of THE BIGGEST impacts on who I am at this very moment, to the same degree that my friend Liam did through our encounter in the gym and subsequent Podcast episode.

Sometimes people are just a spark that ignites a sequence of events…

Will had a long and prosperous career in Emergency Management, of which I wish I knew him well enough to construct his story, but from what he’s told me he’s done a little bit of everything from fire fighting to working with wildlife to doing EM for the state (which is where we met). If you read the outpouring of love from this who knew him, you’d see a common theme among it all: selfless, caring, compassionate, considerate. It got me thinking about my own journey in EM/SAR and why people end up going down the path of servitude.

Esteem

Why do we do these things? Why do people get jobs like nurses, first responders, clergy men, emergency response, charity organizer, etc.

It simply just feels good to do good.

That’s it… I mean, there is more to it then that of course, but for the sake of filling this blog out I’ll extrapolate.

We like to call these things “esteemable acts,” or things that you do that feed our sense of self-esteem, worth, and give us purpose through connection. Sure, there are other esteemable acts you can do that involve self care (making your bed, mindfulness, getting dressed, etc.) but acts of service are those “soul food” items I talked about in a previous blog. I am a FIRM believer (based on experience) that attention from social media doesn’t boost your self worth… it’s artificial sweetener. True self esteem comes from doing the right thing when nobody is looking. It comes from connecting with your fellow human.

Throughout 2020 until now I’ve had this restlessness inside me. A lack of purpose. I had spent six years of my life doing search and rescue, but COVID took that away (apparently nobody was getting lost during the pandemic). I left KCSO in October, and waited to get picked up by Ventura County SAR. Once again, the pandemic made it so there was no academies opened up for a long time (in fact, their next academy is 2022!). Coupled with the fact that I was going nowhere with the Army as a Medevac pilot… I felt purposeless. I felt that not having search and rescue and not having the Army meant I’d abandoned myself and who I truly am inside… what really makes me happy.

Every day was ground hog day. I’d wake up, sign in for work, tidy the house, feed the dogs, interact with the girlfriend and the boy, go to jiu jitsu… but I was missing something. I’d socialize with friends, get exercise, make my bed every day, do self-care based “esteemable acts” but a huge chunk was missing.

I joined search and rescue out here in Texas, it was one of the first things I did when I got here. I put my uniform on the other day. Fresh, crisp, clean… no stains and cuts from previous searches. Like a brand new slate. I adjusted my rescue belt, bloused my boots, and stared back into the mirror. “This is what you’ve been missing… a purpose beyond yourself.”

My whole life I have worn a uniform. Sports, Girl Scouts, Marching Band, Search and Rescue, etc. It has always been part of my identity.

How do you kill a person’s sense of worth? Remove their identity. Remove their sense of purpose. My older brother, a former Army Ranger combat medic bad ass, said it best: “sometimes I think I’ll never be as cool as I was when I was in the Rangers…” For those of you who have never worn a uniform, you’d never understand how powerful it is to wear one. Not powerful in a sense “megalomaniac” sense, but in solidifying identity. You see others in the same uniform, and you see a team. You wear a uniform, and you know you wear it for a distinct purpose. It sets you apart from the others. Without it, who are you? That’s what a lot of folks struggle with, myself included.

There is something that goes on in my head when I put my uniform on. My whole demeanor switches. It becomes “go time.” I get focused. It becomes ritualistic. The last time I wore my KCSO uniform was before the pandemic. I was feeling stagnant after six years. I was tired of just being an EMT, just doing the same trainings over and over again. “There has to be more, I want to evolve…” and so I went down the path to become an Army Medevac pilot as I was tired of eating rotorwash and humping all this gear as a lowly EMT.

I am the happiest when I am helping people. It’s just how my brain is hardwired, how Will’s is hardwired, how Scooter’s is hardwired, how my brothers is hardwired, and how yours is hardwired too. Don’t believe me? Join a volunteer organization… hell, donate randomly to some homeless man or pay for someone’s Starbucks. It feels good. Now do something small like that every day until it becomes a habit. There’s no guilt or shame like you’d find in drinking or cheating or following whatever vice you prefer. Sure, those things can temporarily feel good too, but they come with so much extra baggage. Giving comes with none of that extra baggage and feels just as good, if not better.

Purpose

November 6th, 2013, a day I wrote about in a previous blog about that homeless man who got hit by a car (see “Radical Change: Blood, Bacon, and Cheeto Dust”) I had this defining moment where I knew there was more to life than just punching a time clock. That day was what started me down the path do doing search and rescue. I remember when I drove back home from that scene, my clothes contaminated with blood, bacon, and cheeto dust, the song “Wake Me Up” by Avicii/Aloe Blacc came on the radio. I distinctly remember my car rumbling over the railroad tracks on Cal City Blvd. as it came on, and just became fixated with the chorus as I drove back in shock of it all.

‘So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself, and I
Didn't know I was lost’

I listen to that song now, with it’s lyrics so poignant and relatable to this day, and instead of giving me an existential crisis like it had before it brings a smile to my soul, almost as if to say “Ok, here we go again. Another existential crisis but we know at the end of it something great is on the other side.” I know this as I have experienced several cycles of existentialism and every time I come out on the other side with gratitude for the journey.

As I put my new SAR uniform on, read through all the trainings, and assemble my new gear for my new mission profile I find myself the happiest I have been since last year. Like being out in the hot sun, and you finally take that nice refreshing sip of cold water. “Ah… this hits the spot.” I feel great about myself. I feel great about myself without me having to cheaply compare myself to other people and their own journeys. There is no “I feel great about myself because I know who I am, unlike so and so” or “I feel great about myself because I make more money than so and so.” It’s just “I feel great about myself because this is what’s good for ME and my heart.”

As I go through this blogging journey I am slowly putting the pieces together of everything I needed, but wasn’t aware of it at the time. I thought I had it all figured out…

I was playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” the other day on my ukulele. Will had posted something on Facebook days ago about how Israel Kamakawiwo’ole had recorded it in one take; in my typical ADD fashion, I stopped what I was doing and grabbed my ukulele to try and remember the cords, then immediately got distracted and moved onto the next stupid hobby I have. Today, I’ve been playing that song on repeat…

Do something beautiful with your life. Contribute more to it than you criticize.

As several of Will’s colleagues have said in their own tributes to him:

“The whole reason we’re put here on earth… to take what we have and help other folks with it.”-Will Downs.

And, of course, go make time to visit the people who you care about and care about you in return… before they’re gone…

Will Downs

1979-2021