I don’t have a problem with helping people, I quite enjoy it oddly. What I don’t enjoy is spending superficial time with them. They’re at best open but substantially misguided. Clubs, sports, work, fundraising and volunteering… it all involves egos. I have one too which is why I’m being so flippantly arrogant and elitist about this. I still know humility and kindness too, though. I don’t need you to see and know my ego, that’s the division. I have my own sandbox to play in. It is not yours. I do not want you in it. I do not want yours. Keep it. We need each other to survive, not be. You want to be better than me at things that don’t matter? You win. You want wealth? Prosperity? It’s yours. Take it. You want power? Have it. I’ll even vote for you. It’s a fucking illusion anyway. Just leave me and mine alone. Not in the ‘cry for help’ way where I want you to follow. I Don’t.

I don’t know how many people can say their opinion of humanity improved by becoming a first responder but I am one. Often amongst peers it feels like I’m the only one. That’s part of the problem. I didn’t really think I would care at all. That’s why I felt I could do it well. But some of those skin-sacks of carbon-based coagulation turned out to be real people. With feelings, fears, pains, souls. They too had desperations to survive. Hopes. Dreams. Just like mine. I based my opinion of humanity on how people treated my cover. When you put on a uniform you change the dust jacket and sell them a whole different book in their eyes. They don’t see your fears and your hurt anymore. They don’t see your anger. They don’t see your pain and attempts at numbness. There’s no personal challenge or threat being conveyed. There’s no lifetime of rejection being hidden by bravado. They see capacity and hope. They see protection. They feel safe and cared for. You’re there for them and that relationship is expected and understood. You feel dignified, needed, purposeful. Welcomed. It’s intoxicatingly simple for an outsider who’s never felt that.

I still needed those things under that uniform too. I was still one of them under that uniform. I still wanted to be cared about in the ways I needed to be too. I just couldn’t admit it because I felt weak and vulnerable, a serious betrayal to the epitome. I’ve done a fine job convincing everyone else otherwise. Have I really “changed” if I’ve merely stopped pretending?