Hospital Stays

Being in the hospital was the very last thing I wanted. It brought up old memories- being helpless. Being sick and not having a say in what I wanted - my ex leaving me because I was sick. My body not doing what I want. Financial devastation. And just monumental efforts to get back on track- and then that blow- called, "no- you can't have a weekend or read a book or knit or even visit friends - you will have IV's and medications you don't want and you will lose friends and you will gain weight and you will listen to doctors whine about how they want to leave at 5pm on a Friday but have to deal with you first..." and all the time you will hold your tears and listen to babies being born and announced and realize they are not yours. And your Friday is meaningless and will be for a long time to many people, especially that doctor. And wonder if you will ever have meaning again no matter how hard you try to make it.

You will think about a guy you tried to date who told you there was hope for a future and realize that he saw it through a lens of healthy and his life was not shattered. And you realize how much of yourself you held back. And how much you never told him. How much you blame yourself for being sick and not ever ever ever being able to get better. And how much you recognize that "just friends" is probably the best you're going to get. And how grateful you are that a few "just friends" stopped by and visited.

It is so conflicting. I see no future. I see no hope. I see nothing getting better for me ever. And yet, some days the best and bravest thing anyone does is just get out of bed. People can be so kind. They are.

Part of me wants to knit and be kind and continue forward. And the other part wants to stay in bed forever and not think about anything all because it is all just more loss. More and greater loss for the hoping and the wanting for anything to get better.

I have always thought I was hard to love. When my friends I have invested in come and visit me I feel grateful. And when they back away from me during my hard times I hope it is because I have hidden my invisible illnesses so well. And that they are only surprised or that they just don't deal well with hospitals or sickness.

Meanwhile- dealing with ME is dealing with someone who will have needs and who enjoys meeting needs. If they cannot come through for me or let me come through for them, it is not a relationship or a friendship.

I have a cat who needs me. I realize that as hard as I have tried to make a life here I don't HAVE to do anything. I don't even feel like eating but I must. This will pass. It always does. Life is like that. Hospitals and shocks to our system - they just do. I wish there were more control over when or how my body was going to behave and then how my EMOTIONS were going to behave afterwards.

I often feel I have done something very wrong to have ended up this way. Life wasn't supposed to go this way. It isn't. Tonight I will feed my cat. And tomorrow I will be brave and get out of bed. And eventually I will find my rhythm again. I don't HAVE to have "hope" for the future or "be happy." Those are someone else's rules and I don't have to follow them. I just have to live.