No one knows what it's like...

I'm not self-pitying, that's just the song stuck in my head from being across the street at Moe's Bagels.  Bad seventies music on a snowy Sunday morning when I'm wearing only a sweatshirt and seriously undercaffienated is not a good combo.  

I had a funny realization last night as I sought a place to lie my head for some sleep: this is what it must feel like to be homeless in some regard.  Even though Sami's doing much better and sleeping well, she wanted me to be in the hospital last night, and so I stayed again.  The night before I had found a little bed in the surgery waiting room and I thought it was my little secret.  Turns out that someone had beaten me to it and so I wandered around the hospital with pillow and blanket, seeking a place that was comfortable and quiet enough.  The ICU waiting room was full of people, but there is a sofa in there and no one was on it.  I went in and made a fairly large deal about preparing myself for bed and people started to clear out.  An older woman was sitting in there and when I asked her if she planned to sleep on the couch that night, she replied, "oh no, I just like coming and sitting here in the hospital where it's quiet and warm."  She pleasantly offered me the couch, turned off the lights, and told me the secret of the wall sconces was to unscrew the bulbs since there's no switch to turn them off.  She had a large backpack and wore unmatched clothes and I guessed she was homeless, and that she came here to sleep.  The room was large and I nearly insisted she stay, but she left anyway.  The other woman I've been competing with for the couch the last few nights came in again and quietly took the love seat.  I tucked all my belongings around me, slept on my sweatshirt, and imagined how hard it must be to have to locate a place to sleep and be warm every night, and it made me grateful for a moment.

I'm exhausted, though, and time seems nonexistent here.  Jamison calls it the Las Vegas effect, where you can't tell what time it is, what day it is, or even what time of year it is.  You're caught in a vacuum that feels nothing like reality and yet when you encounter reality it feels somehow even more unreal.  I walked over to the bagel shop this morning to eat and get some juice, and I look like shit.  My hair is flat, no makeup, I'm wearing yoga pants and a tee shirt, and when others look at me outside of the hospital, I wonder what they must think.  In my head, I don't care necessarily, because in my world there is only ICU and my crying/sleeping daughter, but as I see others carrying on normal lives, out to breakfast in their Boulder way - with jogging strollers and North Face jackets, driving Saabs with $500 car seats, planning their day shopping at Wild Oats - it feels like I've landed on Mars it's so unreal.  How can these people live this way when my daughter's in the hospital?  What a strange sensation.