Jen

“The thing is though, when you listen too carefully, too closely, day after day, to that pain, to that keening, it can take a toll. Because to really listen is to feel it, isn’t it?

Therapists are taught not to own the pain, not to take on the pain, but instead to simply observe it at a distance. And you do, for a time. And then you don’t. Then you begin to let it in, to live it, if only for a moment. How can you not feel it some days? There’s a person on the other end of the phone and you’re asking them to talk about the most painful thing that’s ever happened.

Do that day after day, and tell me you might not want to walk outside and bum a cigarette off someone, a thing you kicked long ago, taking deep drags, feeling the thick smoke in your lungs, the instant nicotine buzz, while trying to let go of someone else’s death, wondering why the world doesn’t stop when someone dies.”
― John Kenney, I See You've Called in Dead