I’ve always been a huge believer in alternative health practices and the basic and real understanding that there is so much more to health and healing than solely resides within the physical presence of our bodies. Since I can remember I've had a fascination with disease, and what manifests once disease has taken a hold of somebody. This fascination for me began when I found myself within the cold and shriveling grasps of disease’s icy hands, it was the first time in my life when I accepted with humility that I was not like everyone else, and I never was going to be. Going through a serious illness at such a young age, one can’t expect to come out of such a process and still be able to play and relate to peers with the luxurious ease I once so unabashedly took for granted. Extravagant
That was my first taste of feeling like I didn’t belong, anywhere. When you are sick, it’s almost as if people who are well are scared to be around you or even connect with you to any degree out of some kind of subconscious fear they will “catch” whatever has taken you into it's grasp. All of a sudden you are on the other side of the fence and nobody wants you on their team. Being a teenage girl and already struggling with figuring out who I was and where I fit in did not make the situation any easier. I remember feeling so confused as to why my friends weren’t calling to see how I was feeling, weren’t coming over to sit with me and gab like we used to. It was desolate; isolating at best, but it gave me a perspective on the true value of health and the dichotomy that exists within and around all of us at all times. We all walk a tightrope getting progressively thinner and wobblier as the years go on. On each side of the rope are the two fates- dis-ease and ease, and we spend our lives walking this line between the two, always pretending as if we don’t know the other exists. But I know it does. When you’ve fallen off into that space that shall not be named, when you’ve festered in that pool of your own pity and deep drudgery, you can never forget it’s there, even at times of complete and total wellness.
It’s these times when we learn the most about ourselves, and to our dismay, about the truths of those around us as well. At the time when I was seventeen and sick, I didn't know I could not expect those who have never seen real illness to stand by my side. I didn’t know how beyond uncomfortable it was to be reminded that at any moment they too might succumb to the creepily alluring pulls of sickness. Now that I am well again I can understand where this discomfort in seeing someone you’ve known as healthy for so long, suddenly become a different person in sickness. It reminds us of our own mortality, our own helpless fragility that we subconsciously push out of our minds each morning we wake up with health.
What I also did not expect to find, was how quickly I could become accustomed to being sick. Accustomed to the lowered life expectations that others set for you when you are sick, making it so much easier to set lower ones for yourself as well. All of a sudden the pressure to perform is off, and you get to sit back and watch the other circus acts as they flip and twirl before your eyes. When you’re sick, the rest of the world does seem like a three ring circus. The women with their painted faces, and grandeur performances of reality, smiling and laughing with an air of grace and allure, the men with their oil slicked hair and master of ceremonies wand—directing the rest of the circus on what to do, distracting the audience from any unintentional elements of the show, to where he tells them they should look. When you are sick it’s as if you take on a somewhat voyeuristic personae when walking around with the rest of the world, going to the grocery store or the post office becomes a kind of circus act of its own where you are performing the part of the well person who contributes to society. You secretly watch all the people around you going about their lives and wonder where they get the energy to perform every day?
The most frightening part of it all was that I suddenly not only did not fit in at school, but I couldn’t clearly see my place as a part of society any longer. Even now that I am well, I can’t forget what it felt like to be the “other”, the best forgotten part of society that can only wallow in their own confusion in placing themselves back into animation, like that puzzle piece you find under the couch after months of searching, three puzzles too late.
I never fully recovered from that time in my life. My physical body healed and has become stronger and more healthy because of it, but my emotional body still has wounds are scars that may never completely mend. I often feel like a phony walking in the well world when I have seen the other side and know what it really means to walk this line each and every day, teetering between two universes that refuse to acknowledge the other exists. I sometimes find myself day-dreaming of the easiness illness afforded me, wondering maybe if it would be better to just slip back into that silkily coquettish wardrobe of depression and pity, but somehow I find the will each morning to put on my clown costume and perform yet another show, hoping that each day affords me the joys of health that make the next performance feel a little more like home.
