Left Neglected

Chapter 16





Meditation has been added to the list of rehabilitation techniques that may or may not help me return to my old life. So I meditate. Well, I try. I’ve never had any inclination to meditate, and even beyond that really, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to. To me, meditation sounds a whole lot like doing nothing. I don’t do nothing. I pack every second of every day with something that can get done. Have five minutes? Send an email. Read the school notices. Throw in a load of laundry. Play peek-a-boo with Linus. Got ten? Return a phone call. Outline the agenda for a meeting. Read a performance evaluation. Read a book to Lucy. Sit with my eyes closed and breathe without planning, organizing, or accomplishing anything? I don’t think so.

So when I envision someone who meditates, it isn’t anyone like me. Most often, I picture an old, bald Buddhist monk sitting erect on a bamboo mat in an ancient temple somewhere in Tibet, his eyes closed, his expression wise and serene, like he holds the secret to inner peace. While I admire my imaginary monk’s ability to achieve this apparent state of contentment, I’ll bet my right side he doesn’t have three kids, two mortgages, and four thousand consultants to manage.

But now I don’t have any emails, phone calls, school notices, or laundry to deal with (no laundry being one of the few perks of living in a rehabilitation hospital), and the kids aren’t here. Baldwin’s no Buddhist temple, but I’m still sort of bald, and I’ve got buckets of time. Plus, I’ve started to worry that too much daytime television might be damaging the rest of my brain. So I’m giving meditation a try.

Heidi says it will help to increase my concentration, which I could definitely use more of. Before the accident, I could focus on at least five things at once. I was a multitasking genius with plenty of surplus brainpower to spread around. If concentrating on five things at once before the accident required five gallons of brain fuel, one gallon per thing, now I need four gallons of brain fuel to simply be aware of the left side, leaving only one gallon of fuel to concentrate on only one thing. And then I’m completely out of gas. So I could use some more focus. And meditation might also help to reduce my blood pressure and anxiety levels, both of which are unhealthily and unproductively high.

So here I go. I close my eyes.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on my breath. Breathe. Nothing else. Focus. Breathe. Oh, I have to remember to tell my mother to put a few blankets under one end of Linus’s crib mattress to help him breathe. Bob says he’s got a horrible head cold. I hate it when the kids are sick, and they don’t know how to blow their noses. How old were the other two when they learned?

Poor Linus. He’s probably going to be sick with something from now until May. I swear, once the winter coats come out of the closets, someone in our house is always sick. All those kids in school and day care sneezing and coughing all over one another, drooling on the toys, wiping their runny noses with their hands and touching each other, touching the water bubbler spigots with their mouths, sharing toys and snacks and germs. So gross.

Poor Linus. I should also tell my mother to run the shower as hot as it can get and let Linus breathe in the steam. That’ll help. I miss our shower. The one here barely has any pressure and doesn’t stay hot for long enough.

I miss our bath towels. Thick, soft, luxurious Turkish cotton. And they smell like heaven, especially when they’re right out of the dryer. The ones here are thin and stiff and smell too strongly of industrial bleach. I should ask Bob to bring me a bath towel.

Wait. What am I doing? Stop thinking about bath towels. Stop thinking. Quiet. Breathe. Observe your breath. Meditate. I’m having a hard time with this. I’m having a hard time with everything. I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard at anything and not succeeded. I’m not succeeding. I’m failing. I’m not accepting and adjusting. I’m just failing. I can’t let Bob see me fail. Or work. How will either of them tolerate me if I don’t get back to the way I was before this? I have to recover from this. Work won’t take me back unless I recover from this. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t take me back either.

What about Bob? Will he take me back? Of course he will. He’d look like a real jerk if he left his brain-injured wife. But he doesn’t deserve a brain-injured wife. He married his partner, not someone he has to dress and provide for and take care of for the rest of his life. He didn’t sign up for this. I’ll be his cross to bear, and he’ll resent me. He’ll be stuck with a brain-injured wife to take care of, and he’ll be miserable and exhausted and lonely, and he’ll have an affair, and I won’t blame him.

Wait, can I even have sex with this? I think I can. I should be able to. All the necessary parts are right down the middle. Thank God I don’t have a left vagina to try to find. But will Bob even want to have sex with me like this? Sometimes I drool out of the left side of my mouth and don’t know it. That’s real attractive. And I can’t shave either armpit or my left leg. I’m a drooling, hairy Chia Pet who can’t walk. Bob and I were barely having sex before this happened. What’s going to happen now? What if he stays with me out of obligation, and we never have sex again?

Sarah, stop. Stop all this negative thinking. This isn’t helping. Be positive. Maybe the average person doesn’t recover, or maybe even most people don’t recover, but some people do. You can do this. Remember Attitude. Fight. You can get better. It’s still possible. Don’t give up. Breathe. Focus. Clear your thoughts.

You’re right. Breathe. Focus. Breathe. Who am I kidding? I’m so far from better. Better is a tiny village buried somewhere deep in the Amazon rain forest, not on any map. Good luck getting there. Good luck getting anywhere. I can’t even walk yet. Linus is more capable than I am. Bob says he’s already cruising around the coffee table. And I’m still dragging myself between the parallel bars as Martha commands my every labored move. Linus is going to walk before I do, and I’m not going to be home to see him take his first steps. Not that I was there to see Charlie or Lucy take their first steps. I was at work. But still. I want to go home.

Stop thinking! You’re supposed to be meditating. You’re not going home now. You have nowhere to go and nothing to do. Just be here. Breathe. Think of nothing. Blank wall. Picture a blank wall. Breathe. Didn’t you always dream of having this kind of downtime to relax and catch your breath?

Yeah, but I didn’t dream of having a brain injury in order to have the chance to sit and think about nothing in the middle of the day. That’s kind of a high price to pay for a little R&R, don’t you think? I could’ve just gone to a spa for a weekend.

Sarah, you’re wandering again. You’re all over the place.

Is this what it feels like to be Charlie? I bet it is. Bob took him to the doctor yesterday without me. That was hard, to not be there. I can’t believe he’s being evaluated for Attention Deficit Disorder. Please don’t let him have it. But I almost wish that he does have it. At least that would explain why he’s having such a hard time. And if he has it, then there’s something we can do for him other than yell at him all the time. Yeah, but that something is to medicate him. We’re going to drug Charlie so he can pay attention. I don’t even want to think about it.

Hello? Don’t think about it! You’re not supposed to be thinking about anything. Stop thinking.

Sorry.

Don’t be sorry. Be quiet. Turn it off. Picture turning off the switch.

You’re right. Stop thinking. Breathe. In. Out. Good. In. Out. Good, I’m doing it. Keep doing it.

Okay, stop cheering for yourself, though. You’re not your mother.

Thank God. How long is she going to hang around? Why is she here? Doesn’t she have a life to get back to on the Cape? Probably not. She checked out of her life when Nate was six and drowned in the neighbor’s pool. So why does she suddenly want to be a part of mine? She can’t just suddenly decide to be my mother and pay attention to me after all these years. Where was she when I needed her before? No, she had her chance to be my mother when I needed one. But I really do need her now. But I won’t. As soon as I’m better, I won’t need her, and then she can go back to the Cape where she belongs, and I can go back to my life where I belong, and we can both go back to not needing each other. And that will be better for everyone.

I open my eyes. I sigh. I grab the remote and click on the TV. I wonder who’s on Ellen today.