I'm NOT feeling sorry for myself--but just am talking frankly about how I genuinely feel, okay?
Today I spent six hours alone in hospital, lying on a stretcher, in the anonymous, bustling, chilly hallway--the life and noise and smells of a busy regional emergency room--only one in the north country, going on all about me.
I'm quite used to being alone, but there are times when the reality of my isolation, rings hollow inside me. Like church--for me, being in church in a strange city (and believe me, Glens Falls is very strange) dozens of miles from my nearest relation and thousands of miles from my nearest friends...is hard to bear. Sitting amid the cold stone, looking at Jesus in stained glass, mumbling my way through hymns I don't know...it leaves me feeling small and insignificant.
And being in hospital alone, is the emptiest feeling of all. No one holds my hand, no one murmurs words of comfort...it's just the bustle of life going on around me, while I lay flat, with only a needle in my arm, listening to moans, and beeping and hurried, murmured conversations passing me by.
I hate hospitals. Not because of the tedium and pain, but because they are the loneliest places on earth.
The Loneliness One Dare Not Sound
by
Emily Dickinson
The Loneliness One dare not sound --
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size --
The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see --
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny --
The Horror not to be surveyed --
But skirted in the Dark --
With Consciousness suspended --
And Being under Lock --
I fear me this -- is Loneliness --
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate -- or seal --
1863
