Alexithymic

I spent my last day singing to a patient at the piano. My resident who plays the cello at a local philharmonic orchestra also known as the resident pianist was also leaving that day and we were saying our goodbyes to a certain patient who was going through a very hard time.

Like most days, we got out the Phantom of the Opera scorebook. We were quite a sight. My resident playing the piano, me leaning against the wall singing 'Wishing you were somehow here again' and our patient resting comfortably in a chair next to us, in the middle of the ward at 9 o'clock in the morning. The physiotherapist pops in her head telling us to keep going because the patients are loving it and the Hungarian nurse does a little ballet dance as she wanders past us.

Six weeks of aged care has made me quite fond of little old ladies. They are, the quintessence of blissful unawareness.

I know I haven't been blogging for a while. It's not from a lack of things to say but rather a consumation of thoughts that render me quite numb. Psychiatrists would say I'm suffering from alexithymia.

Sometimes I spend all day in hospital rather than go home just to distract me from the decisions I have to make. This year will be one of many uncertainties and until it is over, I'm afraid I will not be able to share much here.

I wish I had the gift to write exactly what I mean whenever I wanted to. I think if I was a dancer or a singer or a pianist, it would be easier. Raw emotion would translate very well. But words; this requires the gift of a vast vocabulary and inspiration. The latter, has not quite arisen as often as it used to. The former has always been rather limited.

"I used to spend all day reading. I would wake up, grab my spectacles and snuggle in bed and flip to the page I was reading the night before. I would read and read until my stomach began to growl and I would nip down to get a bite, but with a spoon in my right hand and my novel on my left. I would eventually shower and return back to my reading. And when I finished all the books I had borrowed or rented from the local shop, I would walk to the shopping centre and get more. In many ways I was quite the loner in my younger life. Still am now. But then I was quite content to be in my own world. But my world has expanded and it's not so easy to stay in my cosy little corner. Why can't it all stay in one place?"

On a happier note, I want to go watch some whales this coming June.