When You Walk Away, I Count The Steps You Take…

I got a new bed, and an iPod.  Both with Erik’s help.

Cindy keeps saying that I’m in love with him.  I’m going to hit her soon, which isn’t to say that she’s right.  Just that I’m going to hit her soon.

But I do have a feeling that something weird is going on in my life.  I don’t know what.  People who I’m "friends" with are either avoiding me, ridiculously busy, not sure what to talk about with me, or all of the above.

I saw a woman today at work who’s been doing this diet program with Dr. Bernstein or whoever he is.  She’s lost so much weight since I started working there mid-March, and she looks incredible.  And she’s so much happier.  I told her how good she looks, and her reply was: "thanks; you look like you’ve lost weight too, so that’s great for you too."

And I kind of wanted to cry, because no one notices things like that, and a STRANGER noticed.  My mom hasn’t noticed, my aunt hasn’t noticed, and I don’t see my friends often enough that they would notice.  I go to work, though, and some stranger, a random stranger, notices that I’ve been listening to loud music and dancing at home, and walking a shitton at work and on the way home.  Granted, I’m still eating terribly, but a stranger, a woman I see maybe once every 2 or 3 weeks, notices that I’ve lost weight.  A couple weeks ago, I weighed myself at my grandma’s house and, since Easter, I’ve lost about 10 pounds.  Fucking miracle.

Anyways, I wanted to hug her and cry and dance.  It made my day.  And it all went downhill from there.

My grandma has been in the hospital since last Monday.  She’s okay, or better at least.  I haven’t gone to see her.  I can’t I can’t be in hospitals I can’t smell that smell of sick people and disinfectant and pain and tears and I can’t go.  On Tuesday or so, I talked to her on the phone and cried a little, listening to her little voice telling me that she knew I couldn’t come and that it was okay, and that I didn’t have to if I didn’t feel okay with it, and that she loves me and that she knows, she really knows that I can’t go there.

And my mom and aunt just don’t get it.  They think that I could work in a hospital if I had to, but I think about it now and all I feel is queasy.  The smell and the people with tubes and wires hooked to machines, feeding them through a hole in their stomach, IV dripping into their arms, sometimes two and three of them at a time, the smell of decay and death and the sadness, the absolute devastation of people sitting by the bedsides of people who aren’t going to make it out, aren’t going to make it to the end of the week or even the end of the day.  People sitting next to their husbands or wives, fathers, mothers, cousins, brothers, sisters, friends, talking in hushed voices, red-eyed and exhausted looking, the chaplain walking into some of the rooms to pray with the families and sometimes read Last Rights.

In my practicum, we walked into a room where a family was praying with their priest, hands tight to each others, eyes closed in silence, the priest whispering rushes of words while standing with his hand on the patient’s (I hate that word for this kind of thing, but there’s no name for these people that doesn’t sound incredibly offensive or politically incorrect except "patient") and the tears and the nurse ushering me and my preceptor out of the room because he "[wasn’t] going to make it, and the doctor’s cancelled all testing."

My grandpa was in the hospital for a while before he died, and I couldn’t go see him.  My great-grandmother (his mother) died in the hospital when I was about 5.  She’d had a stroke.  She couldn’t really see, but my mom and I were there, talking to her, and I was the last person she said anything to; "you’re so pretty, so big, so beautiful, such a pretty little girl, I love you," my hands on hers, my mom and me watching her breathe so slowly, so quietly, eyes closed, skin paper-thin on her hands, her cheeks, her neck, an IV trickling into her thin body.  My mom told her that we were going to the bathroom, that we’d be right back.  We came back and she was silent so silent so damn silent, didn’t say another word, just breathed and eventually she just stopped breathing.  It got slower and slower, quieter and quieter and then she was gone, the machines didn’t shriek and squeal and beep, but she was gone.

Death doesn’t work for me.  I don’t do hospitals, or hospices.  I couldn’t work Home Collections if my life depended on it, all those people stuck in beds, nurses tending to their every need, people coming to them, never getting up except to use the bathroom and get clean or to be forced to walk down the hall and back, breathing slow and heavy, bones creaking.  I can’t do it.  And I love my grandmother more than I can begin to say, but I can’t go in that fucking hospital.

And still, they look at me like I’m wrong for feeling like this, like I’m a bad person for not going to visit her, but she understands and that’s what I need.

And Tuesday night, this, on the phone at 10.30 at night:

<div style="text-align: center;font-family: Book Antiqua;”>"You’re feeling better?"
"A lot. I’m coming home."
"I love you, you know that."
"I know. I love you too, so much, Karyn. You know it’s okay that you don’t come. You know I understand."
"I know. I’m still sorry. I just…"
"I know you can’t, and it’s okay. You love me, I know that, and I love you."
"You better come home to me, or if not to me, to the dog. I miss you so much…"
"I miss you too. I’ll come home soon. And I love you."
"I miss you so much. I love you."
"Have a goodnight, Karyn, and I’ll be home soon."
"You too… Love you always." "Love you always, too…"

– when you’re gone – avril lavigne –