Epiphany

Today's been one of those weird, whirlwindy days for me.  Maybe it's because it's a holiday of sorts and thus incapable of going smoothly.  I don't know.  

Silversteining (yeah...I made that a verb...) it up in the car earlier made me feel so mixed up and weird.  I found that band about five years ago, and there's a chance I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them.  And that kind of struck me earlier.  The idea that one band, one album, one song, could save a life.  And the idea that they have no clue that they had that sort of an impact on another human being.  

I've had people tell me that I saved them scars, cuts, and burns.  And it's horrible to admit, but I feel almost desensitized to this concept.  I've been working with the same people over and over again with TWLOHA.  It's always the same people.  Some of them genuinely need help, and I've come to love them as if I knew them face to face.  But some of them are on an ego trip, and so their gratitude and three page letters on Facebook about how me staying up til 3am talking to them kept them from cutting themselves feels a bit....falsified.  Like it doesn't compare to the people I feel like I'm really helping.

But I don't want to be desensitized.  I don't want to be the person on the phone listening to someone spill their life's story and their suicidal thoughts while I causally peruse Facebook, or nonchalantly go about some other mundane daily chore.  I want to feel.  I want to sympathize, empathize and care.  I want to be able to tell these people that I'm always here for them, and mean it.  

I hate that it can't be simple.