I walk through the lobby. The smells! Coffee and muffins and flowers and scented candles from the gift shop. Why does Argenon Hospital have a gift shop? I guess everybody has to have a gift shop.
I step out onto the sidewalk.
I’m a free man. Well, I’m a minor, but one quarter of your life is spent as a minor; you might as well make the best of it. I’m a free minor.
I breathe. It’s a spring day. The air is like a sheet billowing down on me in slow motion.
I haven’t cured anything, but something seismic is happening in me. I feel my body wrapped up and slapped on top of my spine. I feel the heart that beat early in the morning on Saturday and told me I didn’t want to die. I feel the lungs that have been doing their work quietly inside the hospital. I feel the hands that can make art and touch girls—think of all the took you have. I feel the feet that can let me run anywhere I want, into to the park and out of it and down to my bike to go all over Brooklyn and Manhattan too, once I convince my mom. I feel my stomach and liver and all that mushy stuff that’s in there handling food, happy to be back in use. But most of all I feel my brain, up there taking in blood and looking out on the world and noticing humor and light and smells and dogs and every other thing in the world—everything in my life is all in my brain, really, so it would be natural that when my brain was screwed up, everything in my life would be.
I feel my brain on top of my spine and I feel it shift a little bit to the left.
That’s it. It happens in my brain once the rest of my body has moved. I don’t know where my brain went. It got knocked off-kilter somewhere. It got caught up in some crap it couldn’t deal with. But now it’s back—connected to my spine and ready to take charge.
Jeez, why was I trying to kill myself?
It’s a huge thing, this Shift, just as big as I imagined. My brain doesn’t want to think anymore; all of a sudden it wants to do.
Run. Eat. Drink. Eat more. Don’t throw up. Instead, take a piss. Then take a crap. Wipe your butt. Make a phone call. Open a door. Ride your bike. Ride in a car. Ride in a subway. Talk. Talk to people. Read. Read maps. Make maps. Make art. Talk about your art. Sell your art. Take a test. Get into a school. Celebrate. Have a party. Write a thank-you note to someone. Hug your mom. Kiss your dad. Kiss your little sister. Make out with Noelle. Make out with her more. Touch her. Hold her hand. Take her out somewhere. Meet her friends. Run down a street with her. Take her on a picnic. Eat with her. See a movie with her. See a movie with Aaron. Heck, see a movie with Nia, once you’re cool with her. Get cool with more people. Drink coffee in little coffee-drinking places. Tell people your story. Volunteer. Go back to Six North. Walk in as a volunteer and say hi to everyone who waited on you as a patient. Help people. Help people like Bobby. Get people books and music that they want when they’re in there. Help people like Muqtada. Show them how to draw. Draw more. Try drawing a landscape. Try drawing a person. Try drawing a naked person. Try drawing Noelle naked. Travel. Fly. Swim. Meet. Love. Dance. Win. Smile. Laugh. Hold. Walk. Skip. Okay, it’s gay, whatever, skip.
Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them. They’re yours, Craig. You deserve them because you chose them. You could have left them all behind but you chose to stay here.
So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.
Live.
Ned Vizzini spent five days in adult psychiatric in Methodist Hospital, Park Slope, Brooklyn, 11/29/04-12/3/04.
Ned wrote this 12/10/04-1/6/05.
NED VIZZINI is the author of three acclaimed young adult books: It’s Kind of a Funny Story (now a major motion picture from Focus Features), Be More Chill, and Teen Angst? Nah . . . . Ned speaks to students and teachers at schools, universities, and libraries about writing and mental health. He also reviews young adult books for The New York Times. He lives in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. His work has been translated into seven languages. Learn more at www.nedvizzini.com.
Author photograph ©2006 by Citabria Stevens