Letting bygones be bygones

(An attempt at describing the way I’m currently feeling - which, already, is in need of thorough revising and rethinking.)

Last Thursday, I was supposed to visit my grandmother at the hospital. Suffering from leukemia, visits to the hospital are fairly common, but I still feel a need to visit her as often as possible during her blood transfusions and appointments with doctors. Having overslept, I woke up too late for her latest visit and wound up angry at myself for not showing up. Five hours later, however, I did visit the hospital, but for all the wrong reasons; just before dinner time I was about to go to the store to buy a bottle of ketchup when I fell down a flight of stairs, cracking the small of my back. Traumatized and suffering from memory loss, unable to move my legs, the ambulance drove me to the emergency room where I was told that I had to spend the night at the hospital.

Having been told not to move my body more than necessary (getting up was definitely out of the question), I was taken to the orthophaedic floor. I was soon placed in a room in which I realized that I was the only one below the age of 65. The night passed by fairly painless, mainly because of the morphine that the doctor had given me. At 8 AM, I woke up to the sound of nurses handing out breakfast plates while asking us patients how we were feeling. I suddenly felt old and fragile, as if my life had passed unnoticed in front of me and that I now was facing death. The sound of the sick elderlies’ coughs bounced against the beige walls, causing a brutal sound that must’ve reminded them of their imminent deaths. There I was, a 19 year-old assuming the role of someone much older. The dementia of some of the patients soon showed its face and I was suddenly seized by a feeling of regret. What kind of life have I been living, what have I attained so far? The answer amounted to: nothing. Willingly popping a few more pills handed to me by a nurse, I realized that I had lost hope.

Death, the most natural of occurences, is an event most of us spend our whole lives trying to avoid, but is avoiding the unavoidable constructive in any way? My night at the hospital proved to be an eye-opener in my life, and even though only a few days have passed I find myself with a new perspective (that I have yet to apply to life, since I’m still unable to perform simple acts as brushing my teeth without feeling a sharp sting of pain). Reminding myself of my imminent death affects my behavior, forcing me to re-evaluate my actions and plans. I do no longer find sitting in the couch for a whole day, working at a 9-to-5 job, not having any particular goals, no striving, to be adequate. I want change; I want to change something; I want to change someone; I want to change myself. Set goals, create, deconstruct, let bygones be bygones and move on. If you ain’t busy living, you’re busy dying.