11/12/16

When I lived at the nursing home, I stayed on one floor for about seven years: the second floor.  It was a privilege and a pain in the ass; a privilege because if there were too many people on the elevator you could easily take the one flight of stairs up to the same destination; a pain in the ass because the room I stayed in had bed bugs, and I had to deal with the problem off and on for a prolonged period of time.  I remember finding a bug in my Spanish book, during Spanish class at school, and trying not to cringe at the thought of other people figuring out that the bug was a bed bug, as bed bugs are a huge nuisance, because they can infest your clothes and bedding, and their bites itch.  Being able to take the one light of stairs sometimes was cool, though, because I was able to exchange a few words with the other stair-crossing regulars, like Leo, an African American who would constantly ask me to go out on a date with him/marry him, and some other random people. 

Some things that stood out the most from my second floor experience were my roommates, and the good and bad times I had with them.  The three that I wish to write about are Kara, Lola, and Nola.  Kara lived across the room, on the opposite side of an arched doorway.  She was in her fifties or sixties, many years older than me, but I still considered her my best friend at the nursing home.  On payday, a day at the beginning of the month when those of us that got an SSI check got at least $30, me and Kara often ordered out.  Sometimes we got deep dish pizza, with a free liter of RC; sometimes we bought Chinese food (beef and Broccoli, or shrimp lo Mein, with egg rolls and fortune cookies), sometimes we would go to Maple Foods, a convenient store manned by a friendly Indian man who would constantly ask me how the status on our friendship was (You are my friend?) and we would buy two liters of RC or ginger ale, or potato chips or candy bars or whatever else was available.  Her sister would send her a check around twice a month and she would buy us food, as I would do also with some of my own (my parents’ own) money.  Sometimes we would stay up late and watch late night shows like Friends or Chicago’s Best; I would place a chair next to her bed and we would veg out, talk, and/or eat until I got too tired to stay awake any longer.  I would tell Kara about all that was going on in my life, or what happened in my past, and she would listen contently. 

Lola was the lady that stayed in the place next to mine.  She used to pace a lot, all over the room, to the point where I pulled my curtain so that I was able to have some privacy, until she knocked the pacing habit.  She and I got into a few fights, some in which the staff needed to intervene.  We hardly talked, as she didn’t seem like the most amiable person.  I was happy to be able to leave the room so as not to have to be around her and have to listen to her yell to herself.  I was able to leave the room after I told my caseworker of two problems; bed bugs, and me not getting along with my roommate Nola.  Nola and I didn’t get along after a while, after she took the place of another roommate that I didn’t get along with.  I told my caseworker how I couldn’t stand Nola, how I couldn’t even stand to see her in the halls, how I felt like I was disintegrating with every second I was by her side, and he let me move up to the fourth floor.  Nola was one of the rudest people I had ever met, someone who only cared about herself, so I felt a lot better when I was able to be without her most of the time.

Before I moved from the second floor to the fourth floor, I made friends with a girl I will never forget, because the friendship that she offered me was something extraordinary, something that stood out from anything I’ve very known; in my life, let alone in the nursing home.  She told me all about her life, and she let me listen while I talked about hers.  We went out for walks alone, by the lake, and she would listen while I would rant on about stupid stuff, like how the headlights looked alive amongst the dead leaves that lay on the ground, or about family problems, or about other aspects of my life that weren’t going so well, as she did the same.  I gave her a pair of my pants; size eleven; at the time they were either too big or small, and I remember her waiting in the doorway as I found them in a Di rawer or in my closet, and I remember her honest look of appreciation when I told her she could keep them (I think she initially wanted to borrow them).  I remember one night she came to visit me; it was dark out, and the room light was out, and the television was on, I think something about the Blackhawks, maybe something live, like an interview or something, and we talked about random stuff, the only thing that I remember of the conversation was the part where we talked about the circuit-breaker bus passes that some off the residents got, and she stood in front of me, in front of the television, with the television and my bed to my left, and she was facing me, and I was in between her and the doorway, and I was telling her how I still hadn’t gotten mine in the mail yet, and she told me that I should just go to the office and get it myself, and I think I remember her repeating herself a lot, like a friend I used to know, and I remember her eyes being very bright, either very blue or very green, and in my memory of her and the evening I have this outline over her head of a hat, like the kind my grandpa used to wear,, but I think this is just because I lost my dad’s two Irish walking caps at the nursing home, and maybe it was the sorrow of the loss of the two tokens of my Irish heritage manifesting itself.  And I remember her standing in front of me and the door, and talking, and leaving, and all the while the commotion of the television was mediating our conversation.

These four people I have distinct memories of, because I lived with them for a number of years.  Living in such a place brings about the need to be able to make friends, just so that you don’t go crazy with loneliness.  I think the friends I made there, most of the time, never let me know the loneliness that we all fear.