COFFEE SHOP.

August 22, 2007

I wrote this one after one of those rare moments when the noise in my head finally went quiet. It was late summer, and I had parked outside a coffee shop that I used to go to before I ever wore a badge or carried trauma shears in my pocket. I wasn’t on a call. I wasn’t saving anyone. I was just sitting there, watching life carry on around me. And for the first time in what felt like months, I remembered what it felt like to just be a person. No tones, no blood, no reports to finish. That strange peace—mixed with the ache of everything I’d seen that week—made me reach for my keyboard. I needed to get it out. Not because the moment was dramatic, but because it wasn’t. And sometimes, that’s what hurt the most.