Last nights events have had a much bigger impact then I had originally thought. For me, this stuff comes naturally and there’s just some kind of gear that engages and I’m off. It’s not like I wasn’t thinking, it was more like I was just reacting. It’s kinda like riding a bike, it’s something you just never forget how to do. I didn’t feel the scene was unsafe because I had 5 police officers around me and half of the neighborhood in the street watching.

Lizze is still pretty upset with me for going out there. I don’t think she is so much mad, but more like worried. I understand where she’s coming from but I don’t see the difference between when I did this before on a professional level and what happened last night. Elliott was awake and knew something had happened. Would he be better off knowing that someone was hurt outside of his house and his daddy did nothing to help? I mean,  he knows what I used to do because he asks me about it quite frequently. What kind of message would that have sent.

This wasn’t my first rodeo, so to speak. Honestly, if I had felt in danger I would not have gone out to help.  There are only a few thing in life that I was truly good at and being a paramedic was one of them.

I really didn’t anticipate my actions to be so upsetting. I never meant to worry Lizze and Elliott saw most of this through the window apparently. He didn’t really see any really bad but he knew something bad had happened because our street was covered in flashing lights and the night air was filled with sirens.

When I came back into the house Elliott was kind freaking out. He was asking a million questions and wouldn’t settle for generic answers. He wouldn’t go to bed and kept making excuses to come back downstairs to be with me. We ended up falling asleep on the couch watching a movie. Gavin and Emmett, thankfully, slept through it all. However, even though they have no idea what happened last night, today seems to find everyone on edge. I’m not sure if it’s fact that I went out to help or the simple idea that someone was stabbed right next to our house. I can look out my back window and see where people were exchanging gun fire last night.

It’s hard to feel safe here anymore and that presents a huge problem for my family in general. If Lizze and the boys don’t feel safe here then that’s going to make things much more difficult. Imagine our lives as a pool of water and we are existing in a boat on that water. Everyday things happen, and that’s like throwing pebbles into the water. The pebbles make tiny little ripples that cause the boat to rock. When someone is stabbed right in front of our house and there is a shoot out behind us, that’s like tossing a much larger rock into the water. This time the waves are much more devastating and nearly cause the boat to capsize.

That’s the best way I can think to explain this kind of thing. I’m not sure if that will make sense to anyone or not but that’s the best I can do at the moment. Four out of the five people in my family are somewhere on the spectrum. Even though Lizze is an adult on the spectrum, she is effected by these things as well and in much the same way the boys are.

I wish last night never happened for a multitude of reasons but mostly because my family would not have been impacted in this way.