On my thirtieth birthday I had a sense of foreboding because, as I commented to anyone willing to listen (and hardly anyone listens to me around this time of year) This will be the deadly decade.
Not because I had any fears for my own health; such concerns are void until the next round of tests, then quickly forgotten. I was instead stricken with an awareness that, while I’d always been sickly, now my friends were going to start experiencing protracted ill health.
This has proved true.
People close to me have been diagnosed with all manner of ravaging diseases, a few will die, a few already have. Wherever possible I offer support in practical ways, or just an understanding ear, and if the individual allows it, a fair dose of gallows humor.
I have always been indignant when people read my work and claim it puts their problems in perspective. Life doesn’t work like that; a broken bone really fucking hurts whether or not the person next to you has just experienced an amputation. Pain and illness are individual, private experiences, no matter how publicly paraded.
If you are the sort of person who feels grateful for your good fortune because others are suffering, I don’t want to know you.
Yes, feel thankful for what you have – just avoid making specious comparisons. My life, while raw and painful and bloody, has always been wildly entertaining. I refuse to let anyone claim otherwise.
This holiday I’ve been feeling rather ill and suspect that I have worked my way back into another stupid sickness (the first time I was diagnosed with bleeding ulcers I was nine years old, so I can reasonably predict what is wrong right now). No, I don’t want to talk about it – leave me alone with my antacids and mushy plain food and I will be fine and dandy.
But while feeling doleful and queasy I’ve been reading narratives from many people here on the internet who are much more ill than me. Elsewhere other friends are dealing with painful invasive treatments. One ended up in hospital over the holiday – crossing fingers she gets out today.
I have an idiosyncratic inclination to protect the privacy of my sick friends, whether they are shy or exhibitionists. Yeah, I will donate to a medical or funeral fund when I have the money, or run a free ad campaign, or spend countless hours advocating for friends in emergency rooms and clinics, but it is rare for me to comment publicly or privately about the health of another person.
In this way I am often a failure as a friend, because some people want acknowledgment and validation of their troubles. If I’d ever consented to therapy I might even understand this urge, though I doubt I would share it. I’m still stuck in the lower gears of survivor guilt and would prefer to take all the pain myself. I’m pretty good at being stoic, after all.
This was really just a long way to say – I hope the new year brings solace and relief to those of you who are feeling awful.