“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?” — Franz Kafka (1883–1924)
I’ve been quiet the past month or so due to a series of events beyond my control and that haven’t resolved yet. My father went to the hospital for a stomach ache and ended up in the cardiac ICU. So far we know he’s had a heart attack, triple bypass surgery, kidney failure, perforated colon, septic shock, lung failure, and is on TPN, Dialysis, and a ventillator. Today is day 31 or 32, I don’t really know anymore, it just feels like a long blur of never ending week.
They don’t tell you when you have family in the ICU that time stands still. Or that you will be so fatigued that you’ll be sleeping during the day. But no matter how much you sleep, your body aches and feels like it’s on day three of staying up all night. They don’t tell you that each shift change at the hospital will call you and that they will have their own opinions on your loved one’s outcome, so you sway between cataclysm and salvation. They don’t prepare you for family members pretending you don’t exist or lashing out for days on end. Or that you will lose things because no one can remember anything and so they throw away your birth certificate, social security card, and nearly $200 dollars… I’m still bitter over that one. One of the hardest things they don’t tell you though, is your family will lean on you so hard for support that you’ll feel yourself suffocating from their demands.
I am hollowed out and exhausted, every moment is left up to fate, and as such I can’t summon the strength to even keep a schedule. It’s a struggle to fulfill any of my commitments right now, to even write. But I’ll keep trying… One day there will be a change and dammit it better be for the better.
Links:
- My Body, the Ancestor: a mycelial conversation with Sophie Strand – Dark Mountain
- Dreaming of Fairies and Connecting to the Ecological Self | Dream Studies Portal
- The Sacrament of Convenience – Dark Mountain
- What it takes to be a glyph-breaker deciphering ancient languages
Reads:
- ‘The Ecological Self’ by Freya Matthews
