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The notebook book12/14/2023 ![]() ![]() I understand, for she doesn't know who I am. I sit for just a second and stare at her, but she doesn't return the look. Both of them touch me and smile as they walk by. Finally the shade is opened and the nurses walk out. The excitement of the morning always upsets her, and today is no exception. It will become quieter after they leave, I know. They are finishing up now her clothes are on, but still she is crying. They do not seem to notice they have become numb to it, but then again, so have I.Īfterward I sit in the chair that has come to be shaped like me. We talk above the crying for a minute or so. "Good morning," they say with cheery voices, and I take a moment to ask about the kids and the schools and upcoming vacations. There are two others in the room, and they too smile at me as I enter. The door has been propped open for me, as it usually is. I'm sure they think it would hurt me to talk about it so early in the morning, and knowing myself as I do, I think they're probably right.Ī minute later, I reach the room. "There he goes again," I hear, "I hope it turns out well." But they say nothing directly to me about it. I listen as they begin to whisper among themselves as I pass. They are my friends and we talk often, but I am sure they wonder about me and the things that I go through every day. Then the nurses see me and we smile at each other and exchange greetings. I hear the muffled sounds of crying in the distance and know exactly who is making those sounds. A person can get used to anything, if given enough time. They are in their rooms, alone except for television, but they, like me, are used to it. Like my hair and the hair of most people here, though I'm the only one in the hallway this morning. I walk on tiled floors, white in color and speckled with gray. ![]() ![]() Instead I slip it beneath my arm and continue on my way to the place I must go. I stand from my seat by the window and shuffle across the room, stopping at the desk to pick up the notebook I have read a hundred times. I cough, and through squinted eyes I check my watch. There is a sickness rolling through my body I'm neither strong nor healthy, and my days are spent like an old party balloon: listless, spongy, and growing softer over time. Until three years ago it would have been easy to ignore, but it's impossible now. The path is straight as ever, but now it is strewn with the rocks and gravel that accumulate over a lifetime. Time, unfortunately, doesn't make it easy to stay on course. I have no complaints about my path and the places it has taken me enough complaints to fill a circus tent about other things, maybe, but the path I've chosen has always been the right one, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. In my mind it's a little bit of both, and no matter how you choose to view it in the end, it does not change the fact that it involves a great deal of my life and the path I've chosen to follow. The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. A good buy, a lucky buy, and I've learned that not everyone can say this about his life. I suppose it has most resembled a blue-chip stock: fairly stable, more ups than downs, and gradually trending upward over time. It has not been the rip-roaring spectacular I fancied it would be, but neither have I burrowed around with the gophers. I wonder if this is how it is for everyone my age. Eighty years, I think sometimes, and despite my own acceptance of my age, it still amazes me that I haven't been warm since George Bush was president. It clicks and groans and spews hot air like a fairy-tale dragon, and still my body shivers with a cold that will never go away, a cold that has been eighty years in the making. The thermostat in my room is set as high as it will go, and a smaller space heater sits directly behind me. I'm a sight this morning: two shirts, heavy pants, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck and tucked into a thick sweater knitted by my daughter thirty birthdays ago. The sun has come up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of a life gone by. Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end? ![]()
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