aimless

okay. apologetic announcement post is done. now for some sleepy rambling. bad grammar and weird tense usage below. too sick to care to correct. this is the writing of the sick.

kiddo is already asleep. he was up and wiggling happily in the bed, snot running down his face at flippin' 4 in the morning today, so I'm not surprised. I seem to vaguely recall what it was like to still have that energy and humor even whilst devastatingly ill, but all I can do is grimace and scowl.

thank you very much to the folks who have been keeping conversation with me through PMs and blogs. hearing from you all makes me feel loads better. what energy I have not been putting toward tending to SmallCaliber's needs (and I suppose my own) has been spent engaging in our lovely exchanges. much thanks for the support! I should note though that I fear this cold may carry on for a few more days, so I'd hate to make everyone feel as if they need to apologize further for my state. Rest assured, your sympathies and well wishes have been heard. don't feel like you're being rude if I mention I'm still ill and you don't say you're sorry! It's hardly your fault, after all. it's mine. I'm sure of it now.

you see there was this little boy at my son's toddler class a little over a week ago who was AMAZINGLY sick. too sick to be among other children, clearly. And yet! there he was, coughing and snotting on everything. I felt for the poor thing, and I glared at his mother reprovingly, but try as I might to keep myself and SmallCaliber out of his germ radius... well...

I'm at the fun part where your head feels like it's stuffed in cotton, and sitting up takes effort. I keep worrying this will morph into something else. It's one of THOSE colds. I'm wondering if I was a fool to refuse a clinic visit earlier. honestly, they probably would have told me that it was too early to do anything. ugh. western medicine gets on my nerves.

y'know, its interesting. whenever I get this sick, this uncomfortable, it smokes out a lot of old memories. it's like my brain is scrabbling for anything to distract me from the fact that I'm sick.

I remembered this time I lost my glasses on the night my high school was shut down at the end of my junior year. It was pitch black in the field where they dropped from my pocket. I was crying. A boy had confessed his feelings to me, but I was so torn up about losing these dumb prescription glasses. (he was a dysfunctional idiot anyway, so don't feel bad for him) Best friend assures me we'll return in the morning to look for them. Me and her go back the next day and search about the school's field. We search and search. Nothing. I look at her, sighing heavily. "Dude, it's done. Let's just go." I put my hands on my hips and look down. There lying next to my foot are my glasses.

Another memory: I'm in a mental health clinic. Self-admitted. Dark time of my life. Lowest, perhaps. I feel safe there. Safe with the other lost souls. There's Brittney, who takes Xanax, percoset, and some other thing. I can't remember. She was a young mother of two and was an insurance agent. She was my roommate, along with an older woman named Donna. Donna the blonde. Donna, the slow-speaker with anxiety, who looked like the sort I would have served at my then-job working at a private golf club. We joked that we were the most normal people in the wing.

I play UNO with them and a woman named Connie who has a large cut on her wrist that she claims she didn't do. The thing bleeds through the bandages. She has to change it often. She calls UNO "you-know" and looks like she could put me in a headlock with one arm and keep me there. Molly plays with us too. No one likes Molly. She's a grandmother's age and batty, constantly seeking attention, and getting far too personal with the other patients. She calls everyone her grandchildren. Her daughter visits her during the week I'm there. The girl, who looked about my age, tells her mother to stop being dramatic. Molly howls that she's being abandoned. The nurses segregate her. Everyone's happier. Even the schizophrenic across the hall. Her name is Ebony. She rocks back and forth in her chair, mumbling. When she's alone in a room, she cusses out someone who isn't there. She tried to ask me for extra clothes. I told her I didn't have any and try to hide behind my copy of Game of Thrones.

I write letters to my friend in crayon. They wouldn't give me pens or pencils. I'm the only one in the ward who likes the hospital food. A week there and I leave. It isn't until the day before I'm discharged that I feel ready to go. While I'm sure everyone else there is determined to forget that time of their life, I'm determined to remember. It helps me get through the rest of the year. I try not to take anything for granted.

one more memory. short and sweet.

...son sits up in the bed next to me at 4 am, wiggles his body in a dance, giggling in defiance of his cold and the sleepy hour.

I laugh, despite my exhaustion.

Comments

[Cynewulf]

I would have wanted to stay there I think

My mom used to joke I should steal something and return it so I could sit in jail and read or loaf all day

But really I just got overwhelmed a lot

[Nines]

3977507

it's hard explaining to people that I actually enjoyed my time at the mental health unit. I got to read and color and sleep. Some of the other patients were nice. It wasn't until towards the end that I wanted to leave, and that was only because the unit started to empty out, all except for Molly and a few other taciturn fellows who stared at walls. The nurses joked that they were busiest on Mondays, and the least busy on weekends. Patients always seemed to get better by Saturday. By the end of the week I had finished reading the two books I had brought, and there was no one left to play UNO with.