THE WAGES OF SIN

Are too hot to handle.
I wish I could of come up with a better title for this part, but it really sums it up. Working in the human services field really takes a toll. The work itself, and the things you do to cope with it.
I have tried many times to chronicle my experiences during the years I worked in hospitals without success. There are just so many memories and people and places in my head that it's impossible to get it out.
Let me just say that it was at once exhilarating, damaging, unbelievably funny, unbelievably sad, eye opening, educational, humbling, dangerous...jeez! I can't even sum it up in descriptives.
Let's just continue to take it in blocks and see if it makes any sense when it's done.
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I continued to work at the hospital after the "wife" and I split. Divorce in Colorado was hella easy back then. You could do it yourself. We did. Buy some forms at a local copy shop,fill them out, have them notarized, pay $32.50 at the courthouse, raise your right hand and swear you hate each other. If you can come back in 90 days and still swear you hate each other, it's done. It was.
I was still working a split shift, but it was only days and evenings. We'd get off shift and go to Jinx's and drink until close. We would talk about the shift and the patients and strategies for dealing with them. In the biz it's called "processing" and process we did.
The drink dulled the pain and the coke made us freudian fucking giants (what a coincidence). We came up with amazing strategies, and surprisingly, most of them worked.
Our partying helped us ignore the damage we were doing to ourselves applying the craft.
There was an end to this road. The end was inevitable, but it took longer for some than others.
I, unfortunately was one of the somes.
Homesickness eventually got the better of me and I called home. My dad flew up and me and buddy met him at the airport in Denver. ( I told security there that buddy was training to be a service dog and they bought it! What are the odds of that happening in this day and age?)
We drove back to Manitou, loaded up my subaru DL and drove back to Austin.
We stayed the night in Amarillo.
That's another story.
Tune in tomorrow when dad gets drunk in a Amarillo hotel room and (sort of) bares his soul.