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On always being sick.
Jul. 8th, 2010 09:51 amUgh, feeling unhappily gross today. It's foggy outside and I'm stuffed up like crazy, with a rough throat to boot. Not a pleasant day. I should be doing all sorts of productive things, even while I'm sick. There are books that need reading and reviewing, I have I don't know how much writing that I need to catch up on, or I could even be wild and crazy and wash some dishes!
But I'm not. I'm sitting on my butt playing Persona 3 (FES, because I recently acquired it in a trade), and maybe later I'll do some knitting while watching reruns of That 70s Show, but beyond that, I don't feel like doing a damn thing today.
Especially not important lifey stuff like going to the gym or getting groceries. That stuff can wait until tomorrow, after I've had a day of rest and tea.
It's funny, but Rei and I sometimes wonder why Cass does so much crazy stuff in her life. (I'm going somewhere related with this, so bear with me.) This past weekend, she got a grand total of 8 hours of sleep over 3 days, because she worked and went to a master screenwriter's workshop. This is not abnormal for her. She often does stuff like this, like pulling double shifts and then going out for some social drinking with friends, shorting herself of sleep to do so. Sometimes it gets to be too much and she'll take a bit of a social hiatus to compensate, but she's nearly always doing a thousand and one things, and we wonder sometimes how she manages to do it.
Then we remember. She, like Rei and I, are in the "prime of our lives" stage of things. We're at the age where we are supposed to be able to do that sort of thing to ourselves and not suffer much for it beyond needing a really good night of sleep once in a while. But because we have chronic illnesses to deal with, we can just barely handle having jobs and a few hobbies that aren't very physically taxing.
Makes me wonder what we could do if we were in really good health. If I lost weight and didn't have to worry about my heart and lungs going screwy and could get over the severe social anxiety. If Rei's workplace would give him a regular schedule so he could control his IBS, or if his social axiety stopped being so much of a problem too.. We could rule the world!
Okay, maybe not rule the world. But we could probably do so much more than we're doing right now, so much that people our age take for granted. We could have a massive cleaning blitz of the apartment, so we could pack things up and have them all ready for when we move again. We could do yoga the way we've been talking about for months. We could spend entire days outside without worrying about whether we're going to be in so much pain that we can't move.
We could pull all-nighters and write, or just hang around and play video games.
For so long, I didn't really think of my life as abnormal. Sure, I have some physical limitations, health issues I need to worrty about, social and mental issues that make some things more difficult, but I figured heck, this is what most people are like, right? My life isn't that different from Joe Random's life.
Then I really take a look at the most 'normal' person I know, and I really begin to understand just how much I can't do because of my health, and how much Rei can't do because of his.
Hell, doing a 24-hour amateur acting bit last year was a big thing for me, and I didn't even go through as much as some others in the group. I slept late the day that it started because I knew I'd be up late and wouldn't get much sleep. I spent the day not doing too much, to conserve energy. I slept for 5 or 6 hours that night, then was on the move all the next day until the evening, rehearsing and dancing and singing and then performing in front of a bunch of strangers.
(It's easier than you'd think for me to be able to act, in spite of social anxiety, because I'm good at getting in character. I become someone who's not me anymore. Let nobody tell you that RP sessions don't do anything for you!)
Most of the other people in the group had been going for a full day on the first day, as they had another performance they had to act in. Then they get little sleep that night, and are on the go all the next day too. I couldn't do that. I'd be tired and cranky and my lungs would be twitchy and I wouldn't even be able to give myself any caffeine because of the risk to my heart.
I didn't think about it much before now, but I got off pretty easy on that, even though it was hard. I couldn't do what the healthy people did. I know I couldn't.
It's not because I'm lazy. It has something to do with my weight, because my weight is probably aggravating my lung and heart problems. But being fat and lazy isn't the ultimate problem in me, though I'll bet that's what a lot of people see. I have conditions that prevent me from leading the life that others my age live.
Right now, I don't feel like I'm missing a hell of a lot. It's not like I'd do what Cass does, booking up almost every spare minute of my timeand then crashing when it all becomes too much. But I wonder what I could be doing if I was fully healthy, the way I'm supposed to be at this stage of my life. What might I have discovered that I love, but haven't discovered it now because I know I couldn't handle the experience? What might I have done that could make people go, "Hey, that's really cool and I wish I could do it"? Would I be tanned from being out in the sun and the wind more? Would I wear different clothes? Would I read less?
I wish I knew what I was missing. I wish I knew how much of what I'm not doing is something I'd actually do if I had the chance or the ability. Maybe I'm missing nothing at all. Maybe everything. I don't know, because I'm always sick and have to consider carefully just about everything I do that involves physical activity and the time of the day. (Getting up early makes my lungs twitchy and stands a good chance of screwing my gut up in a painful way.)
I guess I also wish there was a point to this entry other than just me ranting about what I can't change yet, or can't change ever.
But I'm not. I'm sitting on my butt playing Persona 3 (FES, because I recently acquired it in a trade), and maybe later I'll do some knitting while watching reruns of That 70s Show, but beyond that, I don't feel like doing a damn thing today.
Especially not important lifey stuff like going to the gym or getting groceries. That stuff can wait until tomorrow, after I've had a day of rest and tea.
It's funny, but Rei and I sometimes wonder why Cass does so much crazy stuff in her life. (I'm going somewhere related with this, so bear with me.) This past weekend, she got a grand total of 8 hours of sleep over 3 days, because she worked and went to a master screenwriter's workshop. This is not abnormal for her. She often does stuff like this, like pulling double shifts and then going out for some social drinking with friends, shorting herself of sleep to do so. Sometimes it gets to be too much and she'll take a bit of a social hiatus to compensate, but she's nearly always doing a thousand and one things, and we wonder sometimes how she manages to do it.
Then we remember. She, like Rei and I, are in the "prime of our lives" stage of things. We're at the age where we are supposed to be able to do that sort of thing to ourselves and not suffer much for it beyond needing a really good night of sleep once in a while. But because we have chronic illnesses to deal with, we can just barely handle having jobs and a few hobbies that aren't very physically taxing.
Makes me wonder what we could do if we were in really good health. If I lost weight and didn't have to worry about my heart and lungs going screwy and could get over the severe social anxiety. If Rei's workplace would give him a regular schedule so he could control his IBS, or if his social axiety stopped being so much of a problem too.. We could rule the world!
Okay, maybe not rule the world. But we could probably do so much more than we're doing right now, so much that people our age take for granted. We could have a massive cleaning blitz of the apartment, so we could pack things up and have them all ready for when we move again. We could do yoga the way we've been talking about for months. We could spend entire days outside without worrying about whether we're going to be in so much pain that we can't move.
We could pull all-nighters and write, or just hang around and play video games.
For so long, I didn't really think of my life as abnormal. Sure, I have some physical limitations, health issues I need to worrty about, social and mental issues that make some things more difficult, but I figured heck, this is what most people are like, right? My life isn't that different from Joe Random's life.
Then I really take a look at the most 'normal' person I know, and I really begin to understand just how much I can't do because of my health, and how much Rei can't do because of his.
Hell, doing a 24-hour amateur acting bit last year was a big thing for me, and I didn't even go through as much as some others in the group. I slept late the day that it started because I knew I'd be up late and wouldn't get much sleep. I spent the day not doing too much, to conserve energy. I slept for 5 or 6 hours that night, then was on the move all the next day until the evening, rehearsing and dancing and singing and then performing in front of a bunch of strangers.
(It's easier than you'd think for me to be able to act, in spite of social anxiety, because I'm good at getting in character. I become someone who's not me anymore. Let nobody tell you that RP sessions don't do anything for you!)
Most of the other people in the group had been going for a full day on the first day, as they had another performance they had to act in. Then they get little sleep that night, and are on the go all the next day too. I couldn't do that. I'd be tired and cranky and my lungs would be twitchy and I wouldn't even be able to give myself any caffeine because of the risk to my heart.
I didn't think about it much before now, but I got off pretty easy on that, even though it was hard. I couldn't do what the healthy people did. I know I couldn't.
It's not because I'm lazy. It has something to do with my weight, because my weight is probably aggravating my lung and heart problems. But being fat and lazy isn't the ultimate problem in me, though I'll bet that's what a lot of people see. I have conditions that prevent me from leading the life that others my age live.
Right now, I don't feel like I'm missing a hell of a lot. It's not like I'd do what Cass does, booking up almost every spare minute of my timeand then crashing when it all becomes too much. But I wonder what I could be doing if I was fully healthy, the way I'm supposed to be at this stage of my life. What might I have discovered that I love, but haven't discovered it now because I know I couldn't handle the experience? What might I have done that could make people go, "Hey, that's really cool and I wish I could do it"? Would I be tanned from being out in the sun and the wind more? Would I wear different clothes? Would I read less?
I wish I knew what I was missing. I wish I knew how much of what I'm not doing is something I'd actually do if I had the chance or the ability. Maybe I'm missing nothing at all. Maybe everything. I don't know, because I'm always sick and have to consider carefully just about everything I do that involves physical activity and the time of the day. (Getting up early makes my lungs twitchy and stands a good chance of screwing my gut up in a painful way.)
I guess I also wish there was a point to this entry other than just me ranting about what I can't change yet, or can't change ever.
