Anyone Out There?
Why is it that at 3am, the weirdest things start to bug me out? I think what gets to a person though is that you hear all the quiet around you and you notice how silent and empty the world feels like this late at night. Granted, if it were a Friday or Saturday night things would be a lot different.
In the quiet of this Thursday morning, what starts to wonder through my mind is why we are the way we are.
I live right by the firehouse and at least five times a day, you hear the fire trucks roll out and down the city. What always goes through my mind is "what happened?" Being the nosey person I am, I have the urge to follow it. Not that I want to see what the emergency entails because empathy always gets the best of me. However, at those times of the day I always feel horrible for whatever is going on. I know that it's just part of life, but when you really think about it, it's sad that those fire trucks leave that much during the day. What sort of creatures are we that we purposely hurt one another?
Hurt is one of those words that just brings out the heartache in me. For me, the worst part about this world is that we can stand around and watch others get hurt and not even care. Dozens of times a day, we hear about the murder, the shootings, the stabbings, the intentional hurt. How can we just let that pass through our ears and not even feel anything? It's because it's so frequent that it doesn't even phase us. We see it in movies, read about it in the newspaper, watch it on reality TV. Where is the sympathy these days?
We try to get inside murderers' minds and all that, but when it comes right down to it, the reason for it is simple: we hurt others because we've been hurt before. We've all heard the news stories about the student who killed his classmates because he was picked on in the worst way. We read articles about dads who abuse their children because they were as well. You've seen the eyes of someone who has hurt another and all you see is that pain in them. Touche.
Hurt is physical. But, the worst kind of hurt in the world is emotional. As a person I can say that emotions get the best of me so many times and I'm one of those people that can usually cry easily. As a female, I can tell you numerous times guys have STOMPED on my heart and not even realized they were treading on something so delicate. I've seen my friends hurt and it's the kind of hurt that you can't slap a band-aid on and make it all better. It's the hurt that stays with you until 4am on those quiet nights you feel so alone.
Putting yourself out there makes one so vulnerable. Hurt is clearly a defined risk, but for as long as we've been on this good earth we do it anyway. Results can be so satisfying or devastatingly horrible. Is it worth it? That's what I want to know. Is it worth bringing the fire trucks out of the firehouse for the 6th time today?
It comes down to this: hurt is part of a human. But, if you're not willing to take that bold risk and put yourself out there, how can you ever experience something that can make all the hurt go away?
Bring on the trucks.