Crossroads

The parking lot is full of empty cars. Everyone from my shift has left, except for those who chose to stay and work overtime. But I can't make myself leave. I sit behind the wheel, staring at the dull tan building that has been my second home, my prison, and my pride for the last thirteen years.

All of the emotions flood through me: Lifelong friends made and lost. An entire life built within these walls. But today, for the first time, I feel the weight of the door more than the pull. I came here once full of excitement, buzzing nerves, and a need to help. Now my hands tremble at the thought of working another shift, haunted by everything I've heard through a headset too heavy to carry anymore. Every time I close my eyes, I hear the cries and screams for help.

Everything feels heavy as I drop my head to the steering wheel. I'm not strong enough to hold it up right now. I'm so tired.

I wasn’t always this tired. Once, I walked through those doors with a fire in my chest and the naïve belief that I could make the world a little safer, one call at a time. Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t grow up thinking, "I want to be a 911 dispatcher." I fell into the position. A family friend had turned me onto it, and when the opportunity came, I thought maybe this could be a way to actually make a difference. I was raised by a nurse who always told my sister and me, "Get a job that will always be needed." A 911 dispatcher is always needed. So I took a deep breath and began my journey.

Walking through the door that first day, I didn't know what to expect. I'd seen the movies and TV shows, but seeing a real center was different—so many computer screens, so many sounds. Chimes, beeping, the chatter of radios, questions flying across the room. It was intimidating. Yet I never once felt like running. My heart pounded with excitement. I wanted to know what every little ding meant.

Training was hard. Noticing my nerves, my first trainer asked, "Why are you so nervous?" I explained, "In my previous jobs, if I messed up, someone lost money. In this job, someone could lose their life."

She smiled and said, "The fact that you recognize that means you’re going to be an amazing dispatcher." Those words stuck with me—and thirteen years later, I still pass them on to the new ones.

I never knew what lay ahead. I didn’t know how many calls would change me, how many moments would leave marks I wouldn't even realize were there. Your firsts are always important. My first possible homicide call was also the first time I spoke to a mother terrified for her child. It was a hectic night—jurisdictional confusion over where the crime had happened.

The mother felt like she was being bounced around, just needing someone to listen. I was the first to stop and truly hear her. Her son had gone camping the night before and hadn’t come home. It was around 3 a.m. now. She had driven out to the campsite, sitting in a parking lot just outside our county line but the campsite itself was inside our jurisdiction. She was worried—her son was responsible, always checked in. And worse, he had medical issues and needed his medication. “This isn’t like him,” she said.

One of the boys he camped with had come home bruised and bloodied, but no one could explain why. “Something isn’t right,” she said. I felt her fear—like it was my own. I called a sergeant and explained the gravity of the situation. He left his assigned area to respond. Others followed. Before long, the woods were full of deputies searching for her boy.

But by morning light, they found him—floating in the water. Gone. I only spoke to her once, but it was enough to break my heart. The last thing I said to her was, "I really hope it all turns out well." I hid how much that call affected me. I hid it from everyone. I tried to hide it from myself. But I found myself always wondering about her. How was she doing now? Was she able to move on?

Every call taught me something. Every call added weight to the headset I wore. Some moments and sounds, no matter how many years pass, still echo loud in my ears. The echoes of breaks. The echoes of screams. One night, a woman called about a cow hit on a dark county road. As she was explaining what happened, a semi-truck came barreling around the curve and struck her. She didn’t survive. I was the last voice she heard. I heard the crash. The sound stayed with me, etched into my memory. I heard everything. I had met her before, when she cleaned our center. But now I will forever be the last voice she heard.

Grief and helplessness became familiar companions. And it wasn’t just strangers I feared losing. Sometimes, it was our own. These things always seem to happen so fast. An officer tried to stop a car—and suddenly, he was gone. Radio silence. He had gone into a dead zone. We tried everything—calling him, calling nearby agencies. But he had given the wrong direction of travel. Panic built. Worry. Fear. Feeling so helpless sitting idly by as everyone searched.

Finally, a citizen pulled up and found him holding his suspect pinned to the ground. The suspect was reaching for something hidden in his waistband. If the officer moved, the suspect could pull out whatever he was hiding and lives could be lost. Help arrived within minutes after the citizen’s call. He lived. But the fear never really left me.

Every call changed me. The world outside started to look as broken as the voices I heard inside my headset. Home didn’t mean safe anymore. Love didn’t mean protection. People you thought would never harm each other often seemed to be the ones that do the most damage. So many domestic violence calls weighed on me, even though I never realized how much. Sounds of people assaulting each other. People who said they loved each other ripping each other apart. Hearing people at their lowest taught me how many ways life could fall apart.

I listened to people take their own lives. The scratching of a chair as a man hung himself. The sound of a mother screaming after her child was run over. That was the most haunting thing I ever heard. The baby was only a year old, he disappeared and ran out behind the vehicle backing up before anyone even realized he was there.

And then—the call that shattered everything. One night, an officer came across a car parked in the street. It was a normal call—until it wasn’t. Normally calm and collected, the officer’s voice broke through the radio: “shots fired.”

The man was unarmed, a fact the officer hadn’t known at the time. She had to assume he was armed. If it was a justified shooting or not would be debated by the world and the courts in the following months, but in the center the world exploded. As the story hit the news, calls poured into our center from across the country—people were screaming, cursing, and threatening us. We answered every 911 call—and in between, we were cursed at for something we had no part in.

It all weighed heavily on us. Me especially. I remember saying to myself, “I guess I deserve this.” For what? Because I was on the other side of the radio when the shots were fired? I went to sleep for months wondering if I did everything right. If I had given her this information, would that have made a difference? Did I give her the return for the tag in time? Did this happen because I had given her the call she was on her way to when she came across that car in the street? I found myself crying at night. It felt wrong that I was feeling this so heavily. I wasn’t on scene. I wasn’t the one that pulled the trigger. But I had those reactions. I heard those words. I heard it all play out in real time. Then I heard the calls that followed. The names we were called. The scrutiny that darkened each day.

That was one of my ten officer-involved shootings. Not all ended the same way. Some suspects survived. But each incident carved another scar. I began to wonder if I had a curse after having so many. Why was it always me? PTSD followed each one. Every time I got a call about an abandoned vehicle, my heartbeat would race. I would hear an officer attempt to pull over a car, I would think of how quick it could turn into something worse. Piece by piece, the job chipped away at the person I used to be. Pride gave way to exhaustion. Hope gave way to fear.

I lost time that I will never get back. My grandparents. My mother. Gone while I sat behind a console, answering calls. I missed holidays, birthdays, ordinary days. I missed moments when I should have been laughing, holding hands, saying goodbye. Even when I was there, I wasn't really there. I was too tired, too numb. I became the lost family member—the one who might show up, or might not. The headset never really came off.

Now I sit here, with insecurities I never even realized were growing inside me. Anxiety. PTSD. Grief. Depression. Fear. Hate. The worst-case scenario wired into my brain as my first reaction to any type of situation after 13 years of darkness and stress.

I lift my head from my steering wheel. Tears rolling down my cheek with each memory. I realize now the hardest calls aren’t the ones we answered. They’re the ones we never give ourselves permission to walk away from.

I shake my head and whisper, “I can’t do it anymore.” I know I helped people. Lives were saved because I answered the phone. “I’ve helped all those that I can. But I’m done now.” I say to myself. “But now, I have to save myself.” I look at the sun peeking over the horizon and I know a brighter future is waiting for me—a life where I can breathe again, where my heart isn't always clutched by fear.

I made the decision. It’s time to move on. It’s time to reclaim the pieces of myself I left behind. I put my car in reverse and back out of my parking space. I know the voices will always be part of me. They made me stronger. But now I will live for them. To find the love I once had for the world—and live my life to the fullest. I drive out of the parking lot knowing I won’t be back again.