Enjoy Yourself Paul

At Illinois Masonic Hospital's overflow floor

“Enjoy yourself, Paul.”

The chant rose from the dark corners of the dorm room, half playful, half ominous. I sat there, clutching a thin hospital gown I’d just been told to put on, my heart pounding. I was certain this was the opening act of some kind of cult initiation.

It was June 10, 1981. For the past few days, I’d been attending the United Methodist Church Northern Illinois Annual Conference as a youth delegate, one of more than twenty high schoolers from the Council on Youth Ministries. We were there to vote on real church legislation. It all felt very serious…until it didn’t.

“Enjoy yourself, Paul.”

Just 48 hours earlier, this same group had caused a full-scale commotion when someone tossed a Mrs. Beasley doll from a high dorm window. The fire department showed up to rescue what they believed was a lifeless body. It turned out to be stuffing and yarn, but the chaos lingered.

“Enjoy yourself, Paul.”

The room buzzed with suppressed laughter. I, on the other hand, was spiraling into a full-blown panic attack.

Then I heard my friend Andrew’s voice, calm, measured, slightly amused.

“We’ve gathered here to have you decide why you’re wearing the hospital gown. Each of us will tell you a story, and you have to decide which one is true.”

“Enjoy yourself, Paul.”

One by one, they began.

A girl said her best friend had died wearing the gown, and the grieving parents wanted someone else to have it.

Another claimed it was from a car accident, that it had been worn in the emergency room and somehow made its way here.

I remember thinking: Who brings a hospital gown to a church conference?

“Enjoy yourself, Paul.”

The stories got stranger.

One guy insisted he wore it during his David Bowie phase.

My roommate said it made all her decisions for her, so she refused to take it off.

Someone else swore that every time you threw it away, it mysteriously reappeared the next morning.

By now, the absurdity was undeniable. The room finally erupted into laughter, and it hit me. I was the punchline. This was payback for making out with a girl from my church the night before.

“Enjoy yourself, Paul.”

The next morning, that same young woman drove me through the quiet DeKalb cornfields to my high school graduation. A few hours later, I put on another gown, this one symbolic and expected, and walked across the stage at Evanston’s Beardsley Gym.

I hadn’t thought about that night in decades.

Until last week.

Out of nowhere, a searing pain exploded on the left side of my head, so intense it stopped me cold. The doctors at Ravenswood Family Practice didn’t hesitate. “Go to the ER.”

After multiple tests, including two CT scans, I was admitted for observation. A nurse handed me a folded hospital gown.

And just like that, the memory came rushing back.

“Enjoy yourself, Paul.”

Lying in the dim light of the overflow floor at Illinois Masonic Hospital, I found myself reflecting, not on the fear, but on control.

For most of my life, I’ve tried to manage outcomes, steer circumstances, and keep things predictable. You’d think by 63 I’d have figured out how futile that can be.

There, in that bed, I felt something shift.

Letting go isn’t defeat. It’s relief. It’s the moment you stop swimming upstream and allow the current to carry you, trusting you’ll still get where you need to go.

The tests ultimately confirmed my situation isn’t life-threatening. In the coming weeks, I’ll meet new specialists and go through more evaluations.

But I’m choosing something different this time. I’m choosing to enjoy myself along the way. And leave the hospital gown behind.