Last week, I ended my newsletter with an image of me skipping into the sunset, bouncing back from my chic overnight hospital stay with absolutely no repercussions and the promise of daily improvement. Now, in a narrative twist that is supremely confusing and convoluted and a waste of an opportunity for valuable plot development, I’m writing newsletter #3 from……. another hospital bed.
I’ve had to untie the bow I’d fastened at the end of my last discharge, and now I’m struggling every day to find any tidy conclusion to a very tangled mess. (There are a lot of wires attached to me, all the time.)
For the first days of my stay, that meant denial — an unwillingness to confront how scary it’s been, or how I feel, or the fact that I’m sick at all. I’d break the news gently to anyone who asked, mining from a word salad of zany verbs and vague adjectives to make my situation sound less dire, more quirky.
Little Phrases I’ve Used Instead of Actually Just Saying “I’m in the Hospital”
“I’ve landed myself in the hospital”
“I’ve wound up in the hospital”
“I’ve gotten myself into a silly little mess that has landed me in the hospital”
“I’m in the hospy”
None of these offer any description of my actual circumstances, but “I am in my hospital to have my heart constantly monitored and my electrolyte levels checked twice daily to make sure I don’t suddenly die” is a lot less cute than, like, “I’m in the hospital vibes.”
If you wanted to, it would be incredibly easy to become debilitatingly depressed in here — it only took me about 26 hours, not to brag. The walls are a bright shade of chartreuse that hurts my eyes and makes me look like I have jaundice. There’s a big window in my room that says “please do not open window.” There’s a really nice nurse about my age who could probably be a great friend if our relationship weren’t so heavily-based on me calling for her every time I’ve peed. There’s even a handsome doctor who would undoubtedly have a crush on me if we weren’t meeting while I’m at my all-time low.
For the first days of my sojourn, I let it all get the best of me — between the chartreuse, the fluorescent lights, the twice-a-day blood tests, and the crunchy cafeteria rice, I was in fits of sobs by 11AM, and then again at about 4, draining myself completely of my prescribed soy-milk intake by 6:30 without fail. I was driving my Mom to a nervous breakdown — she saw me in pits of despair so deep, not even Hot Doc (that’s what we call my hot doctor) and his strong chiseled arms could pull me out. I was feeling worse every day.
I came to a critical point at day four when I realized my daily routine of cry, cry, stare out the window, cry, was becoming unsustainable. I can’t change the color of the walls or make the pasta sauce taste less like pennies. I can’t open the window, but I can take some control over my outlook.
I’d said last week that I couldn’t possibly write about Mary Jane flats because I was feeling so dejected and low and sorry for myself — because I wasn’t feeling “my best.” I stand by this assertion, that Mary Janes deserve me at peak performance, and probably more.
So now, a week later, in a sort of thought-experiment, I’m going to write about Mary Jane flats, and by virtue of doing so, I will be my best. (How’s that for some transcendental meditation-level mind control?? Eat your heart out, Brene Brown).
Here it is, then, what you’ve all been waiting for: my hand-curated list of Mary Jane Flats to Wear the Second You Get Out of the Hospital and are Allowed to Walk Around in Something Other Than Taupe Socks with Little Grippies on the Soles.
In a way these read as athleisure to me. They let me picture myself as I’ve always dreamed I’d be — toes bleeding, hair curly, dancing my heart out on the Juilliard stage, wearing an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt (the marker of any great dancer). Until that image comes to fruition though, I think I’d probably wear them with white mid-rise socks and jean shorts and this almost $600 shirt.
This is, in my estimation, a working-man’s Mary Jane. I say this solely because I can picture a white-mustached Italian wood-worker wearing these to walk the cobbled streets of his village. But I can also see me wearing them with this knit set so…
These are the rich art-school girls of Mary Janes. They work as freelance creative directors and they spend summers in Spain and they eat mango and aperol spritzes and caviar and nothing else not even water. I want them to like me.
The shoes I’m wearing from my chic French boarding school to crepes in the park to bicycling along the Seine. Or alternatively with this rugby shirt and these jeans in my current, worse life.
What you’d find in the “hop-scotch” section of Dick’s Sporting Goods if it existed. It doesn’t though. So I’d wear them with this or this or really any clothing item you could realistically call a “frock.”
I’m feeling better already.