Suddenly it makes sense. I was six years old, lying in the hospital for a hernia.
It’s your own fault my mother told me, you shouldn’t have been making such a fuss all the time, stamping your feet whenever you don’t get what you want. I surely should have been marked as a ADHD child when I was young now. See what happened to you. You have to be operated on.
So I lay in the hospital, not so bad, because I get a lot of attention, more then at home, where my mother is busy with my baby brother and her work and we just mooved house, and I just mooved into primary school first year where my teacher tries to learn to me to write righthanded but I refuse, stubborn me, that’s what actually saved me, my stubbornness and never letting go of believing that it will be better one day, and I just had a bad year behing me in nursery school where this old hag didn’t let me go to the toilet, so I got so upset my mother let me stay at home but then I felt not being taken seriously. For gods sake how can you let little childeren not go to the toilet when it is needed? As if I faked it, and the more she refused to let me go, the more I needed to go. That is what makes you piss, stress!
But still in the hospital, during daytime was fun. I was in the row, next to the sink, little children have to finish their plates, don’t they? Well we thought not, so as soon as nurse Redget left, all leftovers, bread, cheese, jam, deserts, potatoes, greens, meats, were handed over my direction. I got out of bed, poored the milk and tea down the drain, flickered all the rest in the bin. And oh yes it hurts, because I shouldn’t get up yet, but I’m a big girl. I even tried not to suck my thumb.
But at night, I got frightened. The cold, the dark, the lonelyness. I have been afraid a lot of lonely nights, lying still in the dark, not mooving, not making any sound, I hear my father come to bed, I hear him fall asleep, his breath changes, I hear my mother come to bed, I hear them making love, sometimes, it scares me. I was afraid of the thunder, of the lightning, I was always looking under my bed, but nothing could live there, it was all stuffed with boxes. But maybe all these boxes, containing useless things, kept the energy I am so sensitive for.
And then a couple of years later I fell in the swimming pool with my head on the stone edge of the tray. Unconscious, walking to the nearby hospital, not knowing, not being able to walk straight, not seeing properly, dizzy, and in the hospital I puked all over me, felt so miserable, and then they brought me with the ambulance to my grandmother where I was staying with my sister, thank god I was there with my sister, whom I love so very much. Remarkable how they managed to maneuver me through the stairs being strapped on a brancard. Because I was not aloud to walk for several weeks. Well finally back home, I started to creep like a toddler, because I couldn’t ly still, I wanted to moove. Funny that is I always want to moove, I find it difficult to sit still, I love mooving, dancing, walking.
In the hospital, there was this smell, and the waiting in the hall, for hours, alone, lonely, not knowing where my sister was, what was happening to me, so afraid, scared, and the cold and sobbing my fear away, I had to be strong. So I only told at school the fun bit, the ambulance, the icecream, the brancard, the big bump on my head, yes you can still feel it. And yes I walked all the way to the hospital, no swet.
Fuck it.
And then there was this time in Mende in France. Years later, grown up. 38 I was. Pregnant, carrying a dead child, which has to come out. And it did, well I thought so, near the river, the stream took it away, red blood shed, thick clumps, emptying out. But two days later the cramp in my body was agony, I ran to the toilet a hundred times, not knowing what was happening to me. After hours, I got so tired, we rang home and asked the midwife what was wrong. She told me to got and see the docter. He put his finger up my vagina and the blood started to run heavily, he fixed me up with a diaper and some serious painkiller, send me to the hospital to scrape me clean, get a curettage that is.
As son as I got into the hospital they put me in a wheelchair, and suddenly I could speak french flawless, That night was hell. I got the surgeon. My partner went back to the campsite. I woke up, by screaming, mothers in labour, baby’s crying, and me, lonely, empty, in pain. The next morning I was released, that evening I started bleeding again, rushed home, I don’t know how fast he drove, but fast, to get home, to feel safe, to ask help. And I bled, endlessly.