This week I was very grateful not to be an eighteenth-century mine worker, modern-day migrant farm worker, sweatshop seamstress, or any other occupation where I could get fired for being too sick to work. I came down with a cold over Labor Day weekend and took a day off work to recover. Almost all day I lay in bed, feeling dizzy and nauseated, occasionally hacking up phlegm. A few times I crept out to the kitchen for a snack, and immediately got a vigorous headache that chased me back to bed. I kept thinking, what if I had to work today? Lots of people aren't allowed any sick leave. What the heck do they do when they feel the way I do - or worse? if they have an injury? Do they just soldier through, with sheer force of willpower? Are most of those people just naturally tougher than I am and more accustomed to discomfort - have they learned, through years of practice, how to override feelings of sickness or pain? Am I just a wimp?
Sometimes I do feel like I'm more fragile than other people I know - and I wish I wasn't. In my mind's eye, I'm fierce and strong, like Xena. I'd like to be the sort of vigorous, energetic woman that people think will have no problem with mountain-climbing, childbirth, or whatever else comes her way. But in real life I have small bones, I'm slender, I shiver when the temperature drops below 80, and I catch colds a lot. When I do get sick, it seems to take me longer to recover than other people. It's not unusual for me to have to take the day off work when I get a cold. And lots of times I'm playing blood-sugar guessing games, trying to decide if that vague feeling of nausea means I'm hungry, or not. This frustrates me. I almost feel like it's a moral weakness.
Grrr. Next time around, I want to be reincarnated as someone strong.
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