And just like that.... I was gone.

Last week I disappeared. I had a general anesthetic on Tuesday morning, was home by Tuesday afternoon, and was completely stoned on Endone until Thursday evening. I lay in bed for forty eight hours, dozing and staring at the ceiling and doing absolutely nothing else.

Endone is a morphine derivative and even the tiny doses I took had a profound effect on me. I couldn't think. I didn't want to think. I didn't want to do anything but stare at the ceiling. I had no interest in watching TV or reading a magazine or eating or chatting to a loved one. I was perfectly content to lay on my back and just BE. It was probably the first time in my life I have experienced that kind of serenity, and - if I stay healthy - hopefully the last.

It is a weird thing, not thinking. Can you imagine not thinking? I don't stop thinking for a moment. Even now, writing this post, I have worried about the article I just wrote and whether my editor will like it, the piece of toast I just ate and how I'd really like another, how the makeup I'm still wearing after my TV appearance  is making my skin crawl and I need to take it off, and that I can't keep on procrastinating with my taxes. I hate doing my taxes. I was thinking that, too.

Since finishing that sentence I thought of the party I was at last night, and how I told one of my close friends that his daughter used to be 'funny looking'. I was a little drunk at the time, but it's really no excuse and I am quite mortified by my behaviour. I am thinking about a chart on introverts I saw this morning, and how it was a revelation because I am not at all introverted. I am thinking about my best friend and why she hasn't returned my message. I am thinking about the mess in my apartment and how I plan to clean it soon. And I am really thinking about that second piece of toast.

"We become what we think about all day long," wrote Emerson, and he has to be right, because really, what else could we be? We are not our bodies, we are not our jobs, we are not our status; we are our thoughts, and our thoughts dictate who we are. I am me because I worry about the things I worry about, because I care about the things I care about, and because I contemplate the things I contemplate. No-one else has my thoughts, hence, I am unique in this world.

Last week I was nothing. I had no thoughts, so I wasn't me. I was a generic body, lying in a bed, staring at the ceiling. I occasionally rallied enough strength to be a simulacrum of me. When my children came in to kiss me goodnight I said the things I knew Real Kerri would have said. But I didn't feel it. I felt nothing. Just air and ceiling and a deep, deep peace.

Now I'm back to me. And with all the worries and petty concerns and ruminations, I wouldn't go back to the serenity. Without my thoughts I am nothing. Without your thoughts, neither are you.