Darkness Until Dawn

 Off again... here I go... round and round... for the show 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 Round to 8 Back to 2 Now to eight ... Where's 7? 7, come in please. 7, stand down. Number one, drop the toys. Blue Screen. Intermission. Building up... Here comes 4, save the day, to the floor... 7's lifting weights again... 2's looking for a friend. 3's got stage fright... 5's picking fights. Rising up, here again, we're a crowd, here to win Should we call roll? Take 5, 5. Drop a number. All together, like we can! Raise a hand! Rise again! Let's all say Grace. Is there a Grace here? No? Not yet. Let's search for Endurance. You want me back? Take a number.

 Well, there was one time I got dragged into the manager's office.  It was regarding a regular caller. I still remember the name. I was fond of that one. You spend enough time with this stuff, it's hard not to think about it. Well, be careful with your social media. That was the take home. Don't you go posting on facebook even a vague reference. The slightest detail. It didn't matter I didn't use the name. They monitor the social media when you work/volunteer there. You can't reference anything at all. I talked to that one many times. I felt like I understood. Oh, there was no advice giving. Not allowed. Reflections, validations, and then what's your plan? And then you forget.

The one I remember most. It was on Crisisline. She was a young adult, I'd guess right around 19. I don't know what the PC term is. Latino? Hispanic? She was in a panic. My brother is out front waving a gun! He says he's going to kill himself!  And, per procedure, my partner/supervisor is by my side, on the line with 911. Tell him you love him. Tell him it's gonna be ok. We've got help on the way. There was another procedure. You end the call, you don't find out what happens.  The final procedure: if it goes the wrong way, you get debriefed. WE NEVER GOT DEBRIEFED.

 I am the Guardian and I walk in the light. I have a home. That home is Crisisline/988. I lived there for 3 and a half years. I remember the building. The halls. The call room. The systems. They may have changed. It's 988 now. It wasn't always local of course. Calls were sometimes rerouted from centers that weren't available. I was one of a handful of male trainees at the training. By the time I was volunteering, I was the only male volunteer or entry level worker. There was one other male worker. I remember him well. On these things I have to be very vague. We all live here. There were three lines. Crisisline, Julie Valentine, and SafeHarbor. Julie Valentine was definitely the darkest one. Stuff you never wanted to know that you didn't want to know. Most of the callers were female. But when the only two people in the room are male, you don't gotta lotta options. There was one caller that had a history. You wanted to write it off as make believe. You didn't want...

There was someone that I followed... it started a long time ago.  I was 17... one of my darkest times... I needed a voice to bring me out. That voice was there. She was roughly half a dozen years older. Bright voice... full of life. Easy smile... very open.  It was a voice I kept to to keep me steady for 21 years, on and off. A voice to give me strength. It was an easy voice to remember.  I heard it a few more times, from time to time. The last time I heard that voice, I was 38. I'm thankful that voice was there.  I've drawn too much attention to that voice. More attention then that voice needed. I'm just thankful that voice was there. It kept me here so many times. When other voices would get loud, I recalled that voice. That voice is gone. I let it go. I'm a bit more steady now. Closer to the ground. I no longer need to cling to that voice and its reassurances and encouragements, which were many. Laugh was like music. That voice had a steady hand with me. She wasn...

The echoes of the city, they slowly fade with time... There beyond the meadows... locked within the vines... Streams of sunlight bearing down This place that once was mine. Here the ancient pillars stand, holding up the wall... Carved into the weathered stone... are records of my fall.. And faded is the mirror there With an image one can't recall. Papers cast upon the stone, beside a pool of water... Letters written long ago... the pain that I begot her... And even as it fades away Yet again it stirs... To remind me not to bring my sorrow Back beyond that wall. Looking up the footprints fall, across a field of mud... Washing in... the memories play, of the times before the flood... A bird, it picks at crumbs of what Was shared in heart and blood. Where the faded footprints pass, is a mystery in my mind... As the voices call again, so stretches out the vine... The clock it will not wind again... Surrender this... to time.

 Well, it's back to this. The one thing the professionals can all agree on. Boundaries. I've started wearing earplugs almost 24/7. Even with them on, I hear more then I need to hear. Funny thing is, with tone of voice and other nonverbals, yo entiendo Espanol. More or less. Comprendo italiano. More or less. As far as the Hablo and the parlano, that's where I run into trouble. Funny thing is, sometimes I like hispanics more then Italians. Maybe I'll give up on English, Italian, and Spanish and learn... well, there's always binary. That's just a lot of 1s and 0s.  I'm trying to keep my communications spaced out. Use fewer words. Now people are like, we want to "lay eyes on you". So I'm having people do that. If enough people do that, maybe everyone else can find something else to talk about and think about. So back to the Self Care School of thought. My coursework has been extensive. I've passed all the hobby electives. I've got the three...