aw, babe. :( … BUT i’m glad you’re here.
(i should at least be trying to go to bed …)
• 23: this is a hard question. i mean, i have had a fairly privileged life, in the grand scheme of things, and i can say with certainty that i have never experienced most of the horrors that millions of people around the world face each day. so, i will do my best to answer this. … well, the aforementioned time when i almost died in the hospital was very bad. i was 17, and i got very sick with the flu, and some complications arose that, by the end of the night, had started to turn my blood literally toxic. when my mom finally took me to the hospital, i could barely stand. i’d walk a few steps and crumple to the floor. i was gasping for air. … i have almost no memory of the first night in the hospital, apart from a few dream-like vignettes. the doctors told my mom it was close, but i would “make it” — which startled her because she knew i was sick but not that i was that close to death. another half-hour and the result would have been much different. i ended up spending five days in the hospital before i could go home. … so that was a pretty bad place to be. … … there is only one other moment that could contend for the answer to this question. i worked as a reporter for a big-city newspaper, part-time, when i was in college. they routinely used to send me to murder scenes to talk to the police and to family members and witnesses and neighbors. i was 21 years old, looked 14, and i would be in some of the worst parts of the city, sticking out like a sore thumb. most people looked at me like, “what are you doing here?” and one time, i was waiting at a scene where a young man had been shot and killed. it was dark out on the street, and i literally was surrounded by 30 or 40 family members, friends, neighbors — and they were all crying … sobbing. everywhere around me. for minutes on end. i can’t even imagine what my face looked like at that moment, being surrounded, enveloped by such sadness and sorrow. … sadly, the city where i worked had its share of crime, and after getting what i needed, i probably went back to my office, typed up a few paragraphs to be buried somewhere in tomorrow’s paper, and went home. … but that awful scene stayed with me for years.
so … just what you need to hear about when you can’t sleep. ;-)