That’s day 26 at the hospital. I never thought of the mental and emotional strain of this experience. I admit that it’s always been in my mind as a b&b kind of thing that you can let yourself recuperate but it’s far from it. I can’t rest under the fluorescent lights and the constant hassle of the nurses, coming and going. Coming to check in, coming to get your meal order, coming to check your pad, coming to take you to the chair, coming back and forth. A constant back and forth that makes me wonder if they ever sit the fuck down. Do they get a fag break? Do they stop moving for just one minute?!

I can’t rest.

Truthfully, i hate this whole situation. And as often I say that I hate it, I wonder if there is a part of me that actually loves this commotion and the feeling of being insignificant, like a piece of meat that means nothing. I’ve never felt more vulnerable and demoralised in my life than being in here. Nurses and doctors are poking and probing, shoving me left and right in order to clean me, change my pad and bedsheet. They misplace my things and lower my table without asking me. They lower or put my bed up without asking me and make snary comments that accurately display the distasteful British humour.

The lady that lives next to me is leaving next week. Unfortunately. Her name is Elsie. Elsie is like a little birdie that lives by the window and there’s nothing else to do except make your day with its singing. She’s humming a tune of her own all day long and there’s something very endearing about her. I look at all three old ladies that reside in this room with me and I think to myself, when I meet old people, they seem to hold a secret that no one else knows. There is a serenity that they are enveloped in – they don’t seem to be thinking about the future or the past. They seem to be just wherever they are. Very often with old people I find it difficult to remember that, they weren’t born old and that they’ve had a whole life before I witness the person they’ve become.

I hope I can be surrounded by this serenity one day.