The Outpatient Monk. Posts

I was terrified the first few times I went to confession several years ago.  I mean, I had grown up in a church that really didn’t like the practice of making confession at all.  In fact they thought it was a bad thing and defied one’s personal relationship with Jesus. We kept a lot of things private back then.   

So most of what I thought confession would end up being was based on bad scenes from movies that made priests look either like bitter curmudgeons with a bone to pick or like sick, judgmental voyeurs. Nevertheless, I felt like this is something I needed to do and wanted to do. I was surprised, shockingly surprised, by what I ended up saying.

“I’m losing my friend,” I said…  and then I froze.   

http://www.kylajoyful.com/2012/07/when-deserts-become-oasis/

It was more just panic than panic attack.  I had faired pretty well and even stayed in the hospital a couple extra days this time after I had my second foot hammered and puttied back together and I am glad I did.  I stuck around where I wouldn’t have to worry about getting my own food and water and where I had access to what you might call, “the good stuff,” to help stave off the pain.   So why I had a sudden sense of panic when the young nurse told me I was  about ready to check out is as much a bit of surprise to me as to anyone else.

I was not  panicking because I would have to go home, not at all.   I was extremely eager to get out of the hospital. Extremely.  It was only a little bit like seeing the

finish line or the light at the end of the tunnel that makes one run a little faster.  But this panic was a little different still and it took me a few days to even begin to understand it.

The only way I have been able to describe it so far is that it was like the feeling that a Doctor had come to me with the great news that an arm cast was about to be cut off in an hour or so. But it was as if she and said it and left the room only seconds before a cockroach flew into the and all I could imagine was an hour of that little bugger crawling rooting around right against my skin for too short a time to rush things and too long a time to be able to bear it.  That is what it felt like.  I needed to be home.  I needed to be there “now!”