In her blog this morning, my mum mentions that she awoke from a dream where the internet service was down only to find that her email accounts were disabled (yet again). On my end of the world, I was woken up by contractors for the cable company drilling and talking loudly just inches bellow my bedroom window and then of course found both my cable and internet were down here this morning too. Interesting coincidence.
I shouldn’t be here writing this now, but I’ve decided I’m spending “graduation day” from the program at the Day Hospital by staying at home today… a combination of mood, hormones, gray skies… not conducive to goodbyes. Besides, I’m not really graduating from anything—just getting on with my life—hopefully a bit better equipped to take care of myself now. They don’t mark the event in any way when any one of us is discharged, which is the term they use for it (and how I’ve come to hate that word), unless the dischargee him or herself brings in flowers or baked goods (as I had considered doing) of makes a speech or something, which tends to be the rare exception rather than the rule. But all that seemed like too much effort today. So for many of us, one day you’re there, the next you’re just gone. No more no less. Sometimes the other remaining participants circulate a greeting card, which is sweet. I just hate goodbyes. There are too many goodbyes in life and besides, I still have a few arts & crafts projects to finish up so it’s already agreed I’ll be there for the workshop session next Wednesday morning and possibly the following week as well. I’ve already got the contacts of most of those I’d like to stay in touch with, and I’ll still be going to that hospital to see my regular shrink periodically, so nothing stops me from popping by and saying hello to whoever happens to be there.
Part of me feels this sense of overwhelming guilt, as if I know I’m not doing the right thing today. Probably the grown-up, responsible, mentally sound thing would have been for me to make that extra effort and pull myself together—put a smile on my lips and courageously face the fact that yet another phase in my life is coming to an end—said my thank you’s and goodbyes, spread some hugs around. But just the thought of it makes me want to cry. I guess I’m just not feeling quite so courageous enough. Sometimes, the grown-up thing to do is to just accept one’s own limitations. And besides, I’ve got a whole drawerful of writing paper and notecards kept especially for writing thoughtful thank-you notes and the like; something I know is always appreciated. That’ll just have to be good enough this time.
