I’m listening to Abbath. On cassette no less. The water heater stopped working. I trouble-shooted, confirmed the rental company I had to contact with my wife and made the call to book the repair. It’s important to me to show that I can deal with a problem myself should one arise. I am supposed to be an adult after all, I should prove it a little more often.

I’m tired of being afraid of everything that needs done and the avoidance that goes with it. I shouldn’t have to pace around to work up my nerve to make a simple phone call. I need a serious plan b. I can’t pace around out front of calls at work while I muster up the nerve to attend them. Maybe it’s time to just start working with the way I am now and stop with this idea that I’m going to be able to go back on the road. It won’t continue being worth the investment. My past reality can’t protect me from the present one forever.

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I can’t decide what to do. My mind is on everything all at once. I’m trying hanging out with my son but the conversation is just adding to the cacophany not helping it. I’m glad he talks to me at 14, it’s not a statement on him. I just have trouble giving it the attention it deserves sometimes. I’m tired. I need a break from mental illness. There should be something for that. Well, there is and it’s all bad. At least for me. The thing about a break is that everything is there afterword anyway. It’s an exercise in futility. Still, it would be great to have one.

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There are no easy targets for complicated emotions. Every time I go outside lately the shrill cry of a siren serenades me. I shouldn’t feel mocked but I do. By whom I don’t know. They have been part of the soundtrack to my failure, worthlessness and disgrace. Always there to remind me I am not strong enough to cope with my emotions. They don’t care. Only I do. It’s hard to have major things in life take a left turn. I always liked to think I was adaptable but this is tarnished with denial and avoidance. In working to shift the value I have for myself and the things I tell myself I am confronted with the damage I have done. I spent so long believing negative things about myself that the conclusions persist and the positivity seems a lie. To have to admit that I couldn’t suck it up and get over it with a few drinks crushed me and brought with it a feeling that I had betrayed myself. Going off work due to mental health problems was not living up to my expectations of myself. Being a physically healthy young man in emergency services and having crippling feelings and anxiety is humiliating. Needing help with it unacceptable. I would never think ill of that person but I don’t want to be that person. Here I am, joke’s on me. What have I done to myself? If I even manage to go back on the road I’m now PTSD, I’m no longer just me. I decided to be honest about it though. I feel I owe that to my profession. I can’t perpetuate the loneliness silence creates. It kills.

So this is it. This is me. Now all I have to do is something. Maybe facing my colleagues and normalizing my situation is what I can do. Maybe it’s not what I go back to but that I go back at all. The mind can’t always make sense of the heart. The heart can’t always make sense of the hurt. I accept.