I've been thinking a lot about rural decay.
I work as a paramedic in a rural area of Texas where there is marked wealth inequality with people living in trailers and shacks on one street and beautiful homes with luxury cars and fancy boats on another. There are plenty of immigrants living off hard gig work and plenty of addicts who have no one left to turn to. There are plenty of elderly who have gone senile or feeble, barely able to take care of themselves while attempting to hold onto whatever routines they have left. There is city poor, and then there is rural poor. My heart aches, yet I have to separate myself lest my coworkers see me as weak or unfit for the job. I separate myself in an attempt to be strong for those I spend less than an hour with trying to help them reassemble themselves so they can continue to separate themselves too, lest they appear weak.