She caught me by surprise. The door swung open and the sound like a cobra's hiss pierced the quiet night sky.  This was when I was introduced to the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life. I tried my best to speak but my no sounds came from my mouth. It was almost as if my face realized the pain in my eyes and all other parts of the body became less of a priority.

"Holy Shit, Diego!"  She said as she finally realized who I was.

I took a few steps away from the door to the lawn. I leaned forward and crouch down into the grass. I tried my hardest to open my eyes but the pain was just too much to handle. I tried to pry my eyes open with my fingers. My body responded with mucus and tears. They tried their best to soothe the pain from the pepperspray. Everything seemed so far away from me now. Everything seemed more quiet. I tried my best to slow down my breathing because I started to feel anxious. I thought about everything but the pain. I started to think how I got to this point. My body began to shake.

I couldn't help the feeling that I would get hurt. We met on a cool August night.  Of course, these days meeting really isn't like how it used to be. Or at least how I imagined it used to be. My vision of her was constructed by random pictures and vague statements. She was made up of "Y'all would make a good couple" or "She is a good person."

I never knew how to feel. My job was to put away supplies in supply rooms at the hospital. I was away from retail and fast food for at least the time being. I never would have expected to be working in a hospital. I was warned heavily about the importance of my job. The supplies were no longer an option but a life or death priority. That in itself brought a special type of nervousness.

When I worked in retail, it was always a thought that I had touched most of the merchandise in the store. I always wanted to quantitfy it. 70% of the store had been touched by my brown hands. Or maybe 1000's of items have been put on the shelf by me. This type of thinking may not have been very productive or healthy but it helped pass the time. I always knew it could be worse. I was never one to wish harm or get particularly angry with customers. It didn't help much when I brought up some of my thinking to others.

"Isn't it amazing to think about the amount of people that have worked together to get that laxative on aisle two?"

This wasn't exactly the type of conversation that won you any points with girls or anyone really. I think that is when I found that maybe my love for logistics and supply chain should stay in my head. I shook my head in frustration when I saw large trucks hauling minimal equipment. I could when my professor said "They might as well be burning gasoline." 

Through my minimal networking I ended up working in a hospital setting. It had been a few months in until I started to realize the variable of time. I worked predominantly in the intensive care units. I would walk through the unit daily and the rooms were always out in the open. The rooms were always visible and my gaze would be drawn into the windows. The patients always seemed in the intensive care were a high priority. I saw this as the definition of perspective. I saw a lot of people in bad shape from a distance. This distance was a blessing and a curse. It would always make my mind run for miles thinking all about this person laying in the bed. The nurses and machines worked their hardest to make at least a second, then a minute, then an hour extension of life possible.

But I was just an onlooker. My job was just to glide around the hospital like a ninja ensuring that stockrooms were full. It was amazing to look onto these patients and think about their lives. Their parents diligently choosing a name, their first crush, their first heart break, their broken bones, their tears, or every kind act they performed that brought a smile to another. These possible situations flowed through my mind. I never had the chance to interact with these people but with no doubt did their life's intersection with my life helped reshape mine. Everything trivial just seemed trivial. I started to sense an importance in my work. The dilligence in my work could ultimately affect someone else's life. That was a lot of pressure.

I remembered my first experience being around a cardiac arrest. There was so much going on. The alarms were ringing throughout the department. The urgency was like none other. Many different areas from the hospital were gathered to work as a team to potentially save a life. My rubber neck couldn't resist the urge to try and get a glimpse of this event. I knew I had no real reason to be around but I felt like I was meant to see this occurence. A nurse I would see everyday was working his hardest to get the life back into his patient. His hair flew all around in the room. The pharmacist, the x-ray technician, the chaplain, and the respiratory technician all looked on with faith.

This faith ran rampant in the department every day. This faith was carried in each day. I would see spouses wake up in the mornin after spending the night in a chair next to their significant other. Their love seemed to carry on deep through their years. My mind would automatically think of their relationship. How many years they have spent together? I wondered how nervous they felt when they first held hands or their first kiss.