You're sitting in a chair by a second story window looking out at a bright summer day, the window is open and you can feel both the subtle breeze and the heavy humid air outside. You haven't been outside in weeks, you haven't left this room in days. The room itself is huge, a four poster bed, a bathroom, the hardwood floor is cool on your feet bare feet. You're in a bathrobe and pajamas, the pain radiating through your upper body is three weeks old, the scruff on your face is nearly that as well.
With the last year burned into your mind, the last year which has brought you to this chair and this window, you know it's all just weakness after weakness. Weakness that got the better of you and you can't pull back from it. It's completely enveloped you and it's eating away at any part that might be hiding residual strength.
You've never been more tired, you've never been so scared, and you've never felt more alone. Everything hurt. Physically and emotionally. The fact that there were people in this house who gave a shit was painful, the fact that there were people in the world who didn't. You are very sick and very tired. The best doctor in the world did the best job he could do on you, and at least you aren't dead. But there is so much more to come, recovery of the mind and body. The heart and soul. Things you never gave much thought to, but the weight of it all coupled with your own mortality is more than you ever thought you'd have to pay attention to. You were never supposed to care and maybe you were never supposed to live long either.
The view outside is everything you were told it would be, calming, green, trees and grass and rolling hills. There is household staff bringing you what you need, nurses coming in and looking after you, the only "family" you've got left bitching at you all the time. It's not terrible, but you still can't make yourself leave this room. You can't make yourself feel anything but worse.
You know you're feeling sorry for yourself, you could find something to do. The stack of unopened job offers and requests for God knows what are piling up on the table you sit next to every day. You hear the front door close and you curiously look down to see the comings and goings. The afternoon nurse has arrived for "rehab" which is basically your verbal quips and her threats to beat you silly. You don't have a death wish, you never have, perhaps that's part of the problem.
An alarm goes off next to you and you look with disdain at the 14 different prescription bottles sitting there mocking you. Some are only to help for a bit, others are to be lifetime companions...You can't abide that. You simply can't. You lean forward and start methodically opening bottles and counting out pills. There's a pull in your chest and its jarring, heart skipping a beat, chest wall muscles pulling, everything hurts. Your heart is broken in all the ways it can be.