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Hospital Room/Healing the Inner Child

Iliana Vasquez

    There she was again, sitting across from the man she remembered loving. She sat there writing on a page that revealed no words. Suddenly, remembering she was dreaming she kissed him passionately. She asked him, “Is it really true, that you
don’t love me anymore?” Her heart was pounding louder than the sounds that surrounded her. He opened his lips to answer her before he could speak. This scene was interrupted and
as in her real life, her question remained unanswered.
    She awoke lying uncovered in a mangled mattress tied to the bedpost.
There she remained staring with watery eyes at the cracked ceiling. She tried desperately to remember what caused her to be in this room this time.
    Instead of complaining she should have been content with the fact that she was forced to rest. In her everyday there was no time to sit and relax.
Everything was on a schedule and everyone had to be attended to.
In her pursuit of success she had no time to contemplate pleasure. Clothes had to be washed, food had to be cooked and children had to be attended to. Things needed to be in order, if they weren’t than something was wrong. Suddenly, as she remembered why she was lying there, half of a teardrop slid along side her face.
She had done it again. In the attempt to escape from the pain of living she took several “pain killers”. There was one problem, she really didn’t want to die, she just wanted someone to know that she was living.
    It always backfired. The visitors that came accused her of being selfish, of not caring for the ones around her and even laughed at her assumed victim like drama. “You have everything going for you, stupid ass. Why, would you do something this crazy?” Someone said. Everyone made her feel worst. No one understood. Not even at this level.
How close do you have to get to
death to get some sympathy?
    At the hospital she was forced to associate with other people, they made her shower, do her hair and join meetings.
They did not want her to remain alone in the room although in her estimation that is all she needed was time “alone” to reflect on the individual she once was. She was no longer that person, who saw life with the hope of “someday” this will happen or “someday” that will happen. It was more like “so when it does happen then what.”
The counseling sessions
made her feel worst. Everything she said they wrote down and all her symptoms had a name.
Nurses cared more about their record keeping than that their patient and the doctors were concerned about the diagnosis not the treatment. She closed her eyes once more. “Why don’t they just leave me alone? The only severe case I have is the lack to seeing life more “promising”. Why, don’t they understand that while everyone else is pretending to be fine “I am the only one seeing the truth.” Maybe that was the answer. Life was taking away her breath of inspiration. She
loved to create things but nothing that she created went noticed.
It was either put away along her work files or thrown away to leave space for more important things.
    Maybe now that she had to go to the recreation facility she could finally sit down and draw something. She laughed at the thought that the psychotherapist would analyze it. She walked down the hall barefooted with her gown half on. Her hair was carefully pasted on to her head and her eyes were fixed on her surrounding. You could hear the laughs at the nurses’ stations and smell medication in the air.
    As she walked by the rooms, she would glance at the open spaces.
One room was of much interest to her. There was a young girl sitting with her legs crossed on the bed, nodding back and forth. She was pale; her eyes were wide open; they were filled with empty emotion. Her hair was in shambles and her feet were very dirty. The room smelled of urine and her plate of food was left untouched.
The little girl did not
notice when Monica sat in front of her and yet she was looking right at her.
This room was more interesting then going into the recreation area. Here was a vital image of what life could make out of innocent clay now there was only paint image as abstract as smashed watercolors.
    Monica sat there with her legs tightly crossed and nodded back forth with the little girl in rhythm. She reached for the little girl’s hands and placed them on her heart. The little girl suddenly realized that there was someone with her and yet she did not move. As the minutes continued on, the girl’s little hands began to slightly relax and her rocking was slowly ceasing. Her eyes almost revealed a flicker of reflection and her legs began to untangle. Monica whispered, “I know your pain.”



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