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Friday, March 24, 2006
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a different theory of relativity.
It's very easy to feel sorry for yourself.
I know some practical people find it impossible to manage, but I don't. That level of perspective is sadly foreign to me.
I felt very, very sorry for myself at work this morning. I was feeling the beginnings of a sinus infection and the dizzy, nauseous echoes of a migraine.
I thought that I was dehydrated, so I drank as much lukewarm water as I could. Someone once told me that your body absorbs water faster when the water is lukewarm. I don't know if this is true.
I even bought a fruit cup at the trendy espresso place down the street, determined to try and spike my blood sugar a little. And, of course, a cup of coffee.
For all my other spiking needs.
I was scared to stand up at my desk once I got back, though. I didn't want to fall down or swoon like some pulp romance heroine, faint with love. I eventually forced myself to stand to go ask my manager if there was a policy on leaving early during the day... did I need to give advance warning? Would it be okay?
See, I don't do that. I don't go home. I don't take sick days. Not ever. But, see, I was feeling sorry for myself, so I thought I'd ask.
She was sweet, as she always is, and crinkled her brow a little at my question of "policy." Of course I could go home if I wasn't well. Of course.
But I knew I wouldn't. Because it was easier just to feel sorry for myself.
I borrowed ibuprofen from a friend and took it with a swig from my water bottle. It was then that I noticed that the water tasted funny. I managed to focus my blurring, doubling vision on my Nalgene, and lo and behold, there was mold on the inside of the plastic. Well.
More sorry by the minute.
I couldn't focus my mind enough to write anything of substance, and even my research was sending me to dead ends. And then my program crashed and ate an unsaved draft.
I don't cry at work, either, but man... I was ready.
I'd officially worked myself up into a state of longsuffering martyrdom. If I'd thought a second longer about any of it, I would have laughed, but my perspective was somewhere at the bottom of an overpriced container of pineapple chunks and kiwi.
And this is me.
I do small, ineffectual things to try and dent my problems, but I never go too, too far to fix them. Because if I did that, what would happen? What is the feeling of completely okay?
Now I was feeling sorry for myself because I was so impossibly lame. And while this was accurate, I really was getting more ridiculous by the second.
I managed to get things done -- tiny errors peppering my performance along the way -- and headed home to meet Catherine for dinner at her mom's house. Which was a happy, happy thought, even if I felt rotten.
I'd bought the best pink tulips to bring along on the way. The pink was so perfectly pink that I grinned at them in spite of myself. And then the owner of the shop -- a shop I'd never been to before -- turned out to be a lovely girl that had worked at a shop near my old job. She'd made me the loveliest bouquets for my friends, and we'd always found something to chat about while she wrapped the peony-viburnum-hydrangea creations we'd concocted in the cold room.
She had her own shop. I was thrilled for her. She is two years younger than I am.
I own a computer.
Do you see where this is going? I felt like a goofball standing there figuring out my budgeting on the fly, seeing if I could afford three bunches instead of two. I reverted to secret self-pity once more.
Dinner was wonderful at Carol's... we ate, chatted, laughed, and told good stories. I said a bit about my weird day-long ailment, since she's a nurse, but we didn't dwell on it.
Instead, we talked about people at the hospital where Carol works. She's a nurse -- a great nurse. She's well-loved and capable, to say the least. And she loves people. Loves them.
So do I. So does Catherine. So we like the stories.
But tonight the stories were so sad: a coke addict sneaking in drugs to give to his elderly father; a young woman who overdosed to avoid dealing with an abusive parent; a man with multiple ailments fighting his caregivers until he died; and an old woman going home to care for herself, because who else would?
I talked about my own grandpa, who had his second surgery -- a lobectomy -- today in as many months. I know he's finding it tough to walk through the recovery process, though he's done so, so well, and he has my sweet parents taking good care of him.
Then we talked about a woman who started a hospital for women suffering with fistulas in Africa. They come from all over Africa to receive care for a condition that shames them and alienates them from their loved ones; a condition that is so unnecessary and preventable, but very common in African rural areas and utterly devastating.
Catherine Hamlin founded the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital to give these women another shot at their lives. Many of them have nowhere to go after they receive treatment -- their families have already washed their hands of them -- but they receive healing and hope there nonetheless.
And they get new dresses when they leave to symbolize their new bodies.
Really, though... it's still more pain than I can imagine. All of it.
And more grace.
You could spend your whole day reading about people who go through hell. Some of them keep walking until they get to the other side, but many can't manage it. Some of them won't even try, because the thought of going on is too much to bear.
These are people who have earned a little self pity. And some of them indulge it and let it take them under. Some people don't know they are allowed to pity themselves, so they just keep going. And still others won't pity themselves, because they see how self-destructive it really is.
Any one of them, however, would have switched places with a girl who was dizzy at work. Or a girl eating expensive fruit. Or a girl who might have to sacrifice a coffee because she got three bunches instead of two.
Or the girl who got to hear about their lives, their sadnesses... and then laugh about something else, ten minutes later.
This is my theory of relativity: someone always has it worse. And the person who has it the worst? They usually don't even have time to think about it.
What is nearly unbearable to me is normal for someone else.
And when I say things like that, everyone always tells me that pain is pain... you can't measure yourself against other people. You feel what you feel, it sucks, and you move on.
Fair enough.
But here's the key:
I did have a migraine.
I do have a sinus infection.
I quite likely have bronchitis, too.
I have serious trouble sleeping.
I end up short on cash now and then.
All of these things suck.
But self-pity did not improve a single one of these issues today. Relative inaction did not help a single one of these issues. Complaining did not help a single one of these issues.
Keeping my upcoming doctor's appointments will. Being responsible with my money will. Disciplining myself to keep a sleep regimen will. Leaving work when I'm sick will.
Recognizing my own idiocy when I roll myself into a sorry little ball, and then actually choosing to do something else?
Best fix ever.
To anyone who reads this entry who is suffering or hurting and can't do a damn thing about it, this is what I owe to you. And to every last one of you that keeps moving forward through difficult times with small steps or big...
You inspire the hell out of me.
My friend once commented on how great your head feels after a headache passes. You never realize how good you normally feel until you experience the arrival and departure of pain.
Clarifying, he called it. I absolutely felt that today.
Giving your head a good, hard shake can have that result, too.
I should definitely try that more often.
12:28:37 AM 
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© Copyright
2006
Meg Fowler.
Last update:
4/1/06; 11:44:17 PM. |
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