Baffled, Lonely, Impotent

Just called Durham General. Charles is still in a coma.

Luckily I had eight hours of deep sleep. An exhausted mind is as narcotic as exhausted muscles. Too restless to read I was grateful last night to have even The WB to distract me.

Even when I go outside I feel like I’m trapped in a cell; four invisible walls separating me from everything else.

There are millions of people in this world suffering from hunger, neglect, illness, and political torture. I’m never able to forget that it leaves me a little ashamed when I dwell on my own pain. In a time like this it is really a necessary, blameless form of egoism.

I have to reach back into my youth to match the cramped misery in my heart this morning. When you are young and unhappy your days are baffled, lonely, impotent. Right now those three words sum me up.

Aside for my minutes at the keyboard I don’t know what to do with myself. Should I go to work, clean the house – clean myself, what should I, can I do with myself?

I have kind caring friends here and among you out there. My friendships are among my life’s blessings. That people care is comforting. But in these moments I’m locked inside myself, unreachable.

And even if I were willing to give my own life I have not power over Charles’ fate. I’m just another spectator.

I think I’m going to go to the bookshop do what is needful and come back home. My biggest fear is that someone will come in and ask where Charles is. Merely saying aloud the word coma would tear me up.