Judgement From The Mountains
A young woman with wavy, light brown hair smiles at the camera. She is wearing a feather earring, a black top, and layered necklaces with heart pendants. The background is a plain, dark studio backdrop.
Today. I've been here before. Some of the staff know me. I don't know them. I don't know myself. A few months ago, in April, I had surgery. That surgery was performed at this hospital. They took out my gall bladder. I don't miss it. What I miss is my memory, which was also removed during that surgery. I remember being in my thirties, kinda. I am now forty-three.
It's okay to be judgmental. However, it is only acceptable to be judgmental toward people who are deemed to have problems with things like drinking. This includes other habits that people give up on Mondays and January First. Like eating.
When it comes to surreptitiousness, judgment, and, most of all, help, eating disorders are still hidden. Justified. Pitied. Ignored. Everybody eats.
"Hello?" The soft voice comes through the brown door, with the thudded sound of knuckles tapping wood, three times. The silver industrial handle has no lock, and it rests a tad too far to the right. In Saint Mary's Hospital, everything is crooked.
When I hear the knocks, I'm reading Facebook. People have such pretty lives.
It is the voice of a doctor. The doctors have different voices from the nurses, and the doctors always open the door as they say my name. Nurses knock, then walk in softly.
"Michelle?" The door opens.
I am on day eight in Saint Mary's. Reno. I know this hospital is called St. Mary's. I look out my window, down four floors and to the right. I see the neon LED sign spanning the entrance to the emergency room. Saint Mary's, in a bright, glowing red. I am in room 407. That's me. 407.
I know I'm a writer, but all I can read is music. And now I sing. I sing a lot, and I write music. When I hear myself sing, I remember that my voice sucks.
My current stay is based on a seizure, the result of alcohol withdrawal. I know this is can only partly be true. I drank a couple of shots of vodka. It was less than twelve hours before the violent seizure that led me here. The seizure that took place while I was attending an AA meeting. I only went to the meeting so I could honestly say I did. Some people have no clue about what they're judging. I know AA very well. My father and two of his brothers preached about it for decades, until they died from overusing alcohol and heroin.
I've heard the nurse explain 407 to other nurses. This happens when a new nurse takes a night or morning shift. I hear these conversations, as they take place, usually, a few feet from where I'm staring at the ceiling from my hospital bed. At St. Mary's. What has struck me as interesting, repeatedly, is that I swear all of these conversations have taken place in Spanish. They haven't. But they have. I don't speak Spanish.