a day at the museum

Yesterday, bright and early in the morning, the phone rang. I didn't really want to, but I answered it, only to hear from a friend of mine, Joan, whom I hadn't heard from in a few months.

I didn't know why, but I was sure it wasn't good.

"Hey, do you want to go to the Museum today?" she asked.
"Umm...sure." I said, still half asleep.
"How've you been?" she asked.
"All right, I guess. How've *you* been?" I asked.

"Oh.....I have a lot to tell you," she says.

It's never a good sign when someone tells you this, for future reference.

"Ummm...Good stuff to tell me, or bad?" I ask sheepishly.

"I've been in the facility since November," she says matter of factly.
"They're letting me out now for the nights now."

Oh kay.


So it seems that she tried to commit suicide back in November, and has been in "the facility" since then.
In the early days she was there 24 hours a day, under suicide watch. Now, she's progressed.

In the past few weeks she's been allowed out. She still has to go there every day from 8 till 6, but they are letting her sleep at home now.
As she says they're trying to keep her "from isolating herself."

They're encouraging her to get out and socialize now, which is where I come in, I guess.

So we went to the museum and breakfast: she, her husband and daughter...and me.


From what she says, it's a little mensa group in there. They're all very well educated. It's actually remarkable.

Now, I've been privy to her problems for more than 10 years now so I can't say I was shocked by what I heard, but it was still not something I fully expected.

The three of us went to the Museum and had a nice enough time, though you could tell everyone was a bit on edge. It was nice enough, but that's not to say she didn't have her moments of triggering, as she called it. Something about the porcelain room nearly made her break down. She's still a bit fragile.

All in all, if I'm honest, it was a bit exhausting for me, however.

Joan and her husband have what I consider one of the best marriages of anyone I know. I admire and envy their marriage so much. I have to feel for her husband especially, since his mother is literally on her deathbed right now too. I'm, in a way, more concerned about him than her.
For the most part we were all in pretty good spirits.

As Mark, her husband says, it was like "MST 3000 goes to the museum."
Everyone was just so serious in there, I had to make some jokes, you know.
We got a few disapproving looks, but who cares, right?

There's nothing that making fun of others can't do. Sarcasm therapy, I like to call it.

It's remarkable healing.