I’m always grateful for the people and things that matter to me, because they’re what gets me through the struggle and pain caused by challenging and realizing all the things that don’t. I just have to listen before those things destroy me, humble and shitty as that may be.

It’s hard to change ‘pride in being’ to ‘proud of having been’. It’s not shame though, it’s pain, and I felt like I had to confront it. Angering, heavy on the chest pain. Push back hard pain. Step to me fucking unfair world pain. Now I’m hurting the people I love pain. I’m causing the pain’s perpetuity confronting the pain. I need to evaluate why I need the pain. What have I lost if I let go of the pain?

Is this pain even anything to do with being a paramedic at this point or am I just unable to cope with loss?

My shame was born from having to remove the shield and admit that not only was I wrong about “feelings” but that I actually had a lot of them. Seems nothing left me more vulnerable to emotional pain than judging emotional pain irrelevant and ineffectual to my wellbeing.

Here comes the flood.

Until next time, stay recoverd and pack an umbrella!