9:59 a.m. - 2007-07-11
But then I get a call at midnight and I want to make it all better.
So much death lately...
It's a smell that I can't escape. Long hallways without any air, trapped from the dust and dirt, caged in. Phermaldehyde, which is not how that is spelled, permeates the air and I watch. Trauma, code orange, get everyone out. Page the on call doctor, etc. I watch. vented, new machines wheeled in, blood gushing, ribs broken, compressions. More compressions. He's been dead since he got here, but the heart monitor won't give up. The heart is always the last to go. I bet it has more memories tied up in all those veins and arteries then all of the connections in the brain put together. It's just hard to let go of all that love. Unfortunately, the gray ghost will come and it does and down that hallway they travel. And I watch, still-standing with blood work to go to the lab, heading down the same hallway, and trapped in that same elevator. There is no need for oxygen here, the dead can't use it and the heat wraps itself around me uncomfortably. It's the smell that's the worst though, you just can't forget it. It just smells lifeless, like everything is gone, mixed with all the topical medications and chemicals used as a last attempt. The color is a close second. Blue hued and pasty, all the blood running to the the sight of conflict, only to end up on the floor. I can't breathe in this hallway. I can't watch this anymore. "Take 5 to Emerson 3." "Take 6 to 4 south, tele." "Take 21 to 3 south." "Take 10 to 5 north." "Now. Disaster coming. Code Green, up to 30 people." "I'll get the emts to help with this one. Take 1 to micu. Now. Go." "You get the monitor." "Are you comfortable taking the monitor off?"
It's just so short. And there's so much of it. How do we live through all the death? How do we survive in this elevator? The truth is, we just don't. We do what we can and the rest is just up to someone else.
So much, yet we still hold grudges and get in fights with sisters and friends and swear up and down that we quit people and won't be there anymore. We swear that for once they have to come to us. Forget this. I mean me. I mean that I've sworn that it's not always going to be me anymore. I can't keep doing this. I can't always just be that person who is there. I can't keep giving. I'm out of things to give and left with disappointment. And life is too short for that. Life is too short to spend it chasing Valium and wine. When it gets to that point, I need to do something else. I need a change. It means that people need to stop meaning more to me then I mean to them. And it means that I have to work on being okay with that. I'm always around. I am. I can't change that about myself. I will always be here for anyone who needs me, because I just fall in love with people and with helping them, but that doesn't mean I have to go looking for it. They can come to me...because we both know that they wouldn't come looking for me if I needed help. No matter how many times I talk you through the night and comfort you when you're down, you will replace me, talk about me, lose interest, and then you will reappear with new problems and a need for a shoulder to lean on and there I am.
Life is too short for this and I can't live like this. I'm too tired.
I'd love to say that I could keep doing this for years and that I will never grow tired of being the one to turn to and I used to, but it's different now. I think back at the times when we used to be able to just be together and be happy. Sundaes on Sundays and the crew all together and smiling. I could define the difference between a best friend and a friend who trusted me. I never thought to question if I could trust them back. I really don't think we'll still be friends later in life. I really don't think that many of us will try to stay in contact across the distance and I think when the vacations come, well, I know who I'll still see because they're the ones that I see now despite and could count on at any time. But the ones who can't even bother to try to have a conversation or ask me why I am acting how I am or wondering why I'm not "there for them" anymore, we will forget each other and fade away and that is simply life. That is simply me caring more then them, as I always have. Just think of birthdays and holidays and schools and car rides when you're down. And then think of just how mutual that has been. I never expect anything in return....just get off my back when I can't be there. Sometimes I just have other stuff to deal with- like my sister, or my mother, or the police showing up at my grandmother's at 3 am because she is accusing my uncle of elder abuse and they've already got the handcuffs ready. Just get off my back about it.
I'm sorry, but I'm out. Someone else is up. Perhaps I'll make a list and perhaps you'll get crossed out, but it will be by your own doing and not mine. I'm not running away, I'm just not running in your direction either. I'm disappointed in myself because I have never been the person to give in or to be like this. I've never been to outright mean to so many people, never hurt so many people. And I have never ever handled it this way. I'm of course taking it out on myself, but I'm just so disappointed in myself, but in a lot of others too. I'm out. Maybe the distance will make the real distance easier. Then again, maybe this is the real distance, after all. I think it might be.
This is the terminal: the light
Gives perfect vision, false and hard;
The metal glitters, deep and bright
Great planes are waiting in the yard-
They are already in the night.
And you are here beside me, small
Contained and fragile, and intent
On things that I but half recall-
Yet going whither you are bent.
I am the past, and that is all.
But you and I in part are one:
The frightened brain, the nervous will,
The knowledge of what must be done,
The passion to acquire the skill
To face that which you dare not shun.
The rain of matter upon sense
Destroys me momently. The score:
There comes what will come. The expense
Is what one thought, and something more-
One's being and intelligence.
This is the terminal, the break.
Beyond this point, on lines of air,
You take the way that you must take;
And I remain in the light and stare-
In light, and nothing else, awake.
I'm sorry for things I haven't even done yet....
I say I want a revolution.....
I think I just want to save the world
