“The Job” is seven minutes away from my front door, yet it feels worlds away. Seven minutes. Five miles.

I’m settling in to my new routine, physical therapy, a little of this and that, just living a day at a time. It’s been a long time coming, “The Job” has a way of wrapping you inside, making you somebody you really are not. If I had a chrystal ball eighteen years ago and peered inside, the person I have become would shock me. I might even smash the chrystal ball in a thousand pieces, shattering it against a wall and never looking again.

People change. It is the normal, healthy course of life, growth, understanding, spirituality. Relationships blossom, or wilt and die, all in such slow incriments it is impossible to see the changes as they happen.

This injury has given me a lot of time to think. It took a few weeks for me to come down from the adreneline rush that is Rescuing Providence. The nature of the job, the power it instills into us, the isolation, hopelessness and anger seep in, changing us, altering our outlook. Knowledge is power I once heard somebody say, but it also makes you powerless. The more I know, the more I see, the more I want to crawl into my home, lock the doors and never leave. It’s a cruel world out there, one that will destroy you if you let it.

Rescue 1 responded to a call yesterday, a teenageed pregnant mother shot to death at three in the afternoon by her “boyfriend.” I should have been working. I’m happy I was at home. At one time I wanted to be wherever the chaos was greatest, to test my skills, to do some good. Now that I’ve come down from all that, I honestly don’t know.