Memories, Terrors, and True Confessions - bullet # 2 "I Don't Like To Sleep Alone"

After Theresa left, I was all alone in my small, dorm-style room on the 12^th floor (Kathy Murphy Leventhal - was it the 12th floor? )  at 158 West 12^th St., NY, NY.   As I mentioned in bullet # 1, I had always had a roommate – first my big brother, Charlie, and then my baby sister, Meg.  I came from a very well protected environment.  My dear Father, God rest his soul, should have had the following epitaph placed on his gravestone, “Don’t stick your neck out”.  Our safety and well-being was all he seemed to care about.  When I was a teenager and wanted to learn to drive, he said and probably meant it, “Why do you need to drive?,  I can drive you anywhere you need to go.”  I said, “What Daddy, you plan to drive me around for the rest of my life?” I finally learned to drive when I was 20.    My very first couple of nights at St. Vincent’s, I remember lying in my new bed, looking out the window at the big city lights and realizing that my childhood was over and like the Babes in Toyland, “ I could never return again”.  I cried myself to sleep for several days until my grief subsided.  When my roommate left I felt sad, scared and in need of some company.  But, by this time in my relatively new career as a student nurse, I had developed two marvelous friendships with MM Bonner and M. Geraldine Crowley. They shared a dorm room a few doors down from me, on the other side of the hall and they warmly welcomed me into their room.  The only problem was there was not one centimeter of extra space in our dorm rooms and of course, no extra bedding.  No, problem!  MM and Gerry were most generous in assisting me as I dragged my mattress down to their room.  I placed the mattress on the floor in between MM and Gerry’s beds and I felt safe, happy and content once more.  In fact it was such a positive experience that the next morning I decided to simply push the mattress under one of the beds so I would be ready for bed again that evening.  MM and Gerry were most agreeable and I believed my lonesome days were  over.   Not so.  That day, the house mother discovered that the  mattress missing from my room was stashed under the bed in my friends’ room down the hall.  She immediately reported the “incident “to the nun in charge (I believe it was Sister Delores Elizabeth).  The next thing I knew I had an appointment scheduled with the School Psychologist in order to uncover my deep seated psychological problem, i.e., “I don’t like to sleep alone”. I had several visits with the Psychologist and I really enjoyed our time together.  But the truth of the matter is I should have simply sung some of Paul Anka’s lyrics to him on my very first visit:

“No, I don't like to sleep alone
It's sad to think some folks do
No I don't like to sleep alone
No one does
Do you?”