Not My Tribe

From Beginning to Entropy

Call it denial—call it shallow, even mean-spirited—but I do not want to join this tribe.

It happens every time I go to the retina clinic for my periodic eye injections. 

This is one of those essays where I might just expose a red flag about my personality. Yes, I can be quirky and opinionated, but here you might wonder whether I’m… you know… okay? The answer is generally “yes” but occasionally—as at the retina clinic—“well, not exactly”.

Every time I go there, I feel anger welling up—fear collapsing into rage, an early souring into entropy.

Who am I angry at? The other patients. Most elderly, like me.

There they are clustered in the waiting room. Old people, often accompanied by their harried and irritated adult children, or by someone who is clearly the paid help.

A Diorama of Despair

The Decor

The room is rendered in neutrals: light grey walls, dark grey floors, beige chairs. Navy doors with large numbers. Merciless fluorescent lighting. Two televisions permanently tuned to CP24—“City Panic 24” in my family’s shorthand. A rack of brochures touting eye medications.

The Personnel

Many of the staff are Filipino. They are unfailingly courteous, astonishingly patient. Some speak in a sing-song cadence that, to my ear, seems infantilizing—though I cannot tell whether that is intention or my own projection.

The Doctors

Expensive specialists. Pleasant, efficient, detached. Slightly bored, perhaps. Moving briskly from eye to eye.

That’s fine. I’m not here for fellowship. I’m here for expertise.

The Process

Check-in begins at reception.

Some patients—myself included—have hearing difficulties. We lean toward the glass, angling a “good ear,” asking for repetition.

Others struggle more. They give their names but do not understand the request for a health card. Eventually, comprehension arrives. Then comes the search.

Men dig through coats and inner pockets. Women rummage through large purses. Wallets are found. Then opened. Then searched again, more carefully, through compartments and zippers.

Cards are located, scanned, returned.

Then the process reverses.

Wallets must be found again. Opened yet again. Cards returned to their precise location. Items spill onto the counter—receipts, tissues, fragments of daily life—then gathered, sorted, restored.

Finally, they are asked to sit.

They move slowly, assessing the chairs, lowering themselves with care—folding, bracing, cantilevering their bodies into place.

Everything decelerates.

The room moves at the pace of an old newsreel, reminiscent of heavily-weighted deep-sea divers trudging along the ocean floor.

The Patients, Everlastingly Waiting

Every seat is taken.

And there they sit.

Not the walking dead—the sitting dead.

Bodies curled, slackened, diminished. Some stare vacantly ahead. Others fixate on the television. Some scroll their phones. Many squint under dilated pupils.

There is, occasionally, a smell—faintly acrid, like something once fresh turned sour. Apple cider past its best-before date, damp and forgotten laundry.

They slump, succumbing to gravity. Grooming is minimal. Hair loose, clothing ill-fitting.

Some fidget endlessly—thumbs twiddling, fingers picking, small repetitive gestures that seem self-soothing.

Some are cranky, with the more active providing loud opinionated commentary on the never-ending newscast. Some spouses or adult children shush them, others stare resolutely ahead with slight nods of their heads, intent on not escalating a tirade. The personal service workers merely stare vacantly, and sometimes pat the elderly ranter on the hand… there…there…

Infantilization

I don’t fully understand it.

“Are we being a good girl today?” I hear, more than once. Almost always directed at women.

I cannot recall hearing, “Are we being a good boy?”

There do seem to be differences.

Men, when diminished, often become irritable—demanding, abrupt, occasionally jocular. Women may shift differently—voices rising in pitch, becoming self-deprecating, coaxing, even wheedling.

Both, in different ways, relinquish autonomy. Or have it taken.

And I find myself thinking—uncharitably—that they resemble spoiled, sly, manipulative children (which may say more about me than about them).

Am I being cruel?

Perhaps.

But something darker sits beneath that reaction.

In the Blink of a Rheumy Eye

Patients are called for imaging.

Chin on the rest. Forehead forward. “Blink… now don’t blink.”

Confusion follows.

They mishear. Misunderstand. Wonder where to put their belongings. Blink at the wrong moment. Shift in the chair.

Caregivers explain again, patiently—or not.

A one-minute procedure stretches longer.

Eventually, it is done.

Back to the waiting room.

Then time with the specialist—brief, efficient. Minutes at most.

And we’re done…..

No, not quite.

Appointments must be booked. The process repeats in reverse.

Then the elevator. Buttons hard to see. Assistance required.

Next, the parking lot.

Cars started. Vehicles moving.

Driving—despite dilated pupils.

I watch the manoeuvring and think, absurdly, of a scene from Austin Powers.

Why Am I So Angry?

It isn’t just anger.

It is shame at the anger.

I come to realize that I am not as kind, not as patient, not as generous as I might like to believe.

It is also a warning.

How often have I thought, smugly, not me?

How often have I later become exactly what I dismissed?

This begins to feel like a moral inventory.

And what do I find?

A pantry stocked with: Fear. Anxiety. Bile.

There But For the Grace of... Something... Go I

I’m not certain about divine grace.

But I understand the sentiment.

Luck. Circumstance. Time.

And so I examine another container—meant to hold empathy, humility.

It is not full. Perhaps that, too, fuels the anger.

Not just fear—but disappointment. 

Does recognizing a flaw exonerate me—or condemn me further?

Not My Tribe?

I resist the label.

I want to believe I am different. Exceptional.

But that illusion is thin.

Perhaps the truth I resist is not that they are different from me, but that they are not.

Membership is not optional.

It is inevitable.

A slow dwindling.

No escape.

Entropy, in the end, conquers all.