"Good Hand Washing"

The title. It's a sign that I'm staring at. It's over the sink in the hospital, as I lay/sit here awkwardly in front of the cracked bathroom door, basking in the light while Grandma talks clearly in her fitful sleep in the hospital bed not four feet away, my mind racing with a million thoughts. So much...so much has happened, I can't process. I don't even know if it registers as reality, despite the hot tears running down my cheeks that say otherwise. I feel this nagging need to run away. To just...disconnect from everyone and be truly alone. But then again, that's preposterous. I love too hard to just walk away from everyone. The place I've called home for the past six months doesn't even feel real anymore. It feels...wrong. Something is wrong. There's a bad omen about that place, however dearly I love the people in it. And I do....Monica, Karen, Gena, Rachel, Marilyn...I love them. They're my peoples. But...when I'm there...I feel...disconnect. I feel like I don't actually belong there. I feel like I'm watching myself try to hold onto this life that I'm not meant for. But what is the alternative? Moving back in with my parents, being driven half mad by their irresponsibility, and feeling more alone than ever. I don't feel like I belong anywhere. I don't feel like I have a home. I know I have a house, in Salina, but...it doesn't feel like home. Especially since my parents are never there together -- sometimes I feel like I'm in some twisted version of a divorce where my parents spend a couple of weekends together a month and get along in an equally twisted way. And, I this is very conceited and selfish, but I don't want to be involved. I find myself resenting this entire situation with my Grandmother because I had plans next week -- because I have lessons and things that can't keep being put off. The sensible side of me keeps reminding me "it's family. It's your Grandmother. You have to do this. You have to step up to the plate and make Kimmy proud. You have to be supportive and willing to sacrifice." And then in comes the artist, the dreamer saying "run away. Just walk away. Leave it all behind, start a new life, disconnect." It's like this war inside of me fueled by readiness to be on my own. To find my own apartment and pay my own bills and start my own life with a dog (or a cat) and my beautiful friends and my own fun, quirky, dysfunctional world. God, this is all just babble...babble about nothing. About things that can never be, that never will be. I'm not crazy, I'm not completely irresponsible, and I've got the worst guilty concious of anyone I know...so I'm not going to disconnect. I'll stay right where I am....here. In this hospital room. Getting lost in my vampyre books, the smell of ammonia, and dreams of leaving all of this behind. Life is tiring, I've decided. It just....sucks everything out of you until you can't breath, can't sleep, can't eat, can't function. You just...exist. There's a quote I included in Dean's valentine's gift --- "It is rare to live. Most of us just exist." --- Damn it, I want to live. I don't want to just exist. I don't want to walk through my day after day like a droning hospital monitor that hums every once in a while and loses itself in normalcy. I find every reason to leave Lawrence, to leave Salina, to not go back, to just travel around and see people and sleep on couches (or beds, in Joel's case....Kyle's house is just too flippin big), and shower wherever...like a nomad. I like being a nomad. I like waking up in the morning and saying "hm. I think I'll go to Salina today. But I'm going to stop in Manhattan on the way and see some people and maybe I'll stay there for a day or two, who knows, and then I'll go on to Salina and maybe jaunt up to Wichita or Hays or WHATEVER"--------I love that. I love that adventure. And it lets me see people in a whole new light. When I'm in Manhattan, seeing Joel...Dean...Dru -- I don't have the obligations ... to let my roommate know where I am, to include other people, to blah blah blah...I can just...focus on them. Really talk to them. And cherish the time I get to spend with them since it isn't every day. Don't get me wrong, I cherish my time with my friends in Lawrence --- but sometimes it isn't the same. I love Monica...but lately, it's like we don't even converse....we don't exist in a coinciding reality, it's just this....clash of beings. But Kare-bear...I know I can always count on her for a good conversation, a fun adventure, a huge laugh, and a shoulder to cry on...she's always there. And it never wavers. I love that. I hope I'm that for someone else. I just hope I'm SOMETHING to someone else. Bah...now I'm babbling again. I don't remember why I'm even writing this right now. I haven't a clue where my mind is....probably stuck somewhere in the walls of this hospital, tearing to get out.