Listening to Metallica while I sit and think. The trip downtown to the train station went ok. No panic. I was at the high end of ‘anxious but functional’. It proved an exhausting session. I don’t feel any better about going back down there. I got through it but I’m left with the question that plagues me most in recent times: if this is what it’s like being in these environments now under normal circumstances how am I ever going to cope with doing calls in them? Exposure therapy has this way of making me feel like my goose is cooked when it comes to going back on the road. Evil Army now serenades my ears. I have found an acceptance of the possibility that returning may not happen. The denial kept me from beginning to heal. There was only one path, and unless I was taking it I didn’t walk. Even still the idea of not being a paramedic shallows my breath. My adult life has been forged around it. Either way I’m starting over. It’s not like I’m going to just book fit and go back. I’m too far up this creek. Damaged goods. Which forgotten corner of HQ will I finish my tenure in?