Trampled Rose

My second ambulance call was yesterday.
Marea, who has been on the ambulance for ten years, said she's never been on a call like that one.
A paramedic, afterwards when we were cleaning up the ambulance, asked if I was new. "Yes," I said. "This is my second call."
"Yeah," he said. "Shit happens."
We laugh. Like letting 02 out of the oxygen tank.
"If you ever need to talk about what happened, you can always talk to me," said Marea. I thanked her, and told her I was okay.

I've seen stuff before. I've seen starvation, and stick people that don't look human, and aids, and illness and babies with bugged eyes, and abuse, and stuff that is so weird I still don't know what to think of it.
But I still don't know how to feel after. Should I immediately get over it? Afterwards I can laugh and eat and be happy and forget when entertained. I can turn up the volume and zone out. Should this make me feel guilty? To what point am I supposed to feel responsible? Should I?

Nevertheless, I was thankful that I was able to be on the call. I want experience. I got it. And I am glad for it. I hope that I can be trained to the point where I can function fluently without being in the way-- a scrawny 17-yr-old trying to melt in the wall.
Sometimes I think that I must be a hard-hearted apathetic piece of trash.
But hell, the whole world's dying.

On another note, I think I know a little bit more about what I want to work towards for my future. I think I want to work with human trafficking victims. Nameably, young girls. In India. Which would mean knowing a lot of counceling. Knowing how to talk to young girls that get locked in cages and raped repeatedly until they feel like robots with no name and no will. And trying to teach them that they have worth.
This world sucks, sometimes.
I have to find out how to go about persuing this goal. And what schooling I need. And stuff like that. I don't even know how to begin, though.
It's okay. It'll come, in time. God knows.
Everything.