four years ago, my dad was in the hospital. it wasn't until he needed to have surgery that i knew what was wrong with him, and which hospital he was at. even at that point, i didn't know what his chances were, or when he'd be leaving the hospital. he died, not long after his second? third? operation.
the other day, this lady said something i considered slightly fucked up. it came out of nowhere. she turned to me, while we were volunteering in a food pantry, and said, you know, your father had been dead for a while before they found out. i knew, because his nails were blue. your mother was leaving to take a shower and come back to see him, but i knew already. and the whole time, i stood there like, are you serious? i knew what she was talking about, and the day she was referring to. i was there, and i had actually gone to talk to him and stuff. i wasn't sure if he heard me or not, but i liked to think that he did.
i really wanted to visit him while he was in the hospital, because i don't know... you know what i mean? i don't know what will happen. that scares me. but i'm so used to shutting myself down when my negative emotions start to feel uncontrollable that now i don't necessarily feel afraid, but i know that there's a part of me that is.
yesterday, i spent over ten hours hanging out with two of my friends. the guy whose recital crush # 4 was supposed to be at (he never went), and a girl in one of my classes that my "papa bear" calls the big e. i guess we can call my friend goofy because he's pretty silly. anyway, the big e has a crush on goofy, and i'm aware of this. and he likes me, which i'm also aware of. i didn't eat all day, because the two of them make me think of kenny-- goofy, because they've played the guitar together and we've partied together, and the big e, because she started becoming friends with kenny, but then she stopped and now i don't know what's going on. i'm not really sure why the thought of kenny makes me not want to eat, now that i think about it, and i'm not really sure why that made sense in my brain. but it does. accept it.
i can't really talk to my mother about this either. this morning, while making tea, in a greater lapse of sanity and self-control than usual, i asked her, how long after someone has surgery do they leave the hospital? she couldn't answer it clearly. and then, because i asked, she started drilling me about who was in the hospital and what they were doing there. so i told her. my friend is having surgery on his lung. the house got really quiet after that. it's not like we have the greatest relationship. we can barely live together. even if we did, i wouldn't bring it up. this is about the same time of the year that my dad was having surgery for the first time when i was fifteen, and i don't think i want to bring back those memories for her.
i guess what i'm saying is i'm scared. kenny and i may not be the closest friends in the world, but we've had some pretty personal talks, and some pretty special moments. like the night i threw up on him when i got really drunk. i've been sober for the entire semester, but
this sucks.
his surgery is today, in approximately five hours. i'm going to deal with this the same way i dealt while my father was having surgery: cleaning, consuming nothing but tea and water, and playing video games. hopefully, he'll be okay.