First Paragraphs... maybe

The sun is blinding as I walk down the few steps onto the paved driveway. My skin pricks as the heat washes over me, melting away the frigidness that has wrapped itself around my body. I leave the confines of the shade and shadows of the porch and venture into the sun. My body goes from being cold to hot in a matter of a few seconds. I continue walking along the short paved driveway until I find a spot on the curb between my two favorite bushes. I sit down heavily, drinking in the hot, dry early summer heat. I fill my lungs with the hot, humid air, feeling it warm me from the inside. I watch as large passenger, commercial vans come and go along the drive, either leaving dialysis patients to await a certain torture that only dialysis brings, or picking up patients and whisking them away from the torture chamber to once again revel in their respective comfort zones. I look at each person wondering what this particular treatment will hold, what he or she is going home to. The burning rays of the sun begin to shock the skin on my neck, face, and chest. I lift my hands and create a faux shield against my forehead and watch a number of vehicles pass by, some drivers peering at me from the comfort of their cars. After a few more moments, I push myself up from the curb and return to porch. I greet a few other patients as I take the few steps toward the porch. I continue to watch people come and go. Many of them I know by name. Some have pseudo-adopted me as a daughter, though I have yet to figure out why. I cannot call them by name if my life depended on it. I can only recognize them by face, but I continue to smile and talk to them as if I have known them all my life.

This has become my life. Sitting on the porch, watching the world go by, feeling as if I am stuck in suspended animation. Then it dawns on me that I am not alone. There are others, women I know and am close to, who are sitting on some stoop, in some chair, in some hospital bed wondering the same things, watching as the world goes by in a blur.