Ramblings on a Wednesday morning
On being sick, taking a break, struggling, and finding relief in writing
Yesterday morning, I had no plan to make it to physics class. I planned to be still too sick to care, and by that, I mean I was still too ill to get anything out of classes for the day. You see, I’m not one to add to my misery when I already feel less than 100%. Today, I considered it until I stayed in bed a bit longer and, upon finally getting up, felt dizzy and nauseous, which are both never good signs you should go to class. So, I let my professors know that I wouldn’t be in class today as I wasn’t in class yesterday. It sucks, though, it does. Every time that I’ve been sick this semester, I’ve felt more and more in isolation, which is upsetting because that means about the only person I am regularly exposed to is my roommate, and even then, I try to maintain my distance because I don’t want to give him whatever I have.
Some, in my case, would just load up on pain relief and other over-the-counter medications to feel good enough to go to class. In my case, well, I’m tired of taking ibuprofen just to feel “well enough” to function as a human being. The thing is, we should rather rest and take a break instead of overloading our already overloaded bodies. I just am not in the mood to think about how to find the velocity of some particle or how to find the partial derivative of some equation or another when my brain is more directed at administering to my internally wounded body (as in illness). So, I just take a break and keep my distance because, in this case, sharing is not caring.
Yes, my nose is in misery as I’m writing this. My throat isn’t super sore, but yet there’s still some bit of pain back in there. Meanwhile, I’m just writing because being sick has almost been the least of my struggles this semester. I just feel broken sometimes and trapped beneath parts of me that I never show, yet sometimes try to get past the anxiety of them being part of me. If that was a bit cryptic, that makes sense because I am honestly unwilling and too stubborn to discuss this, at least in this environment.
The thing is, looking from the outside, we have no clue what other people go through and struggle with on a day-to-day basis. I think we’re all afraid of one thing - to be judged by others. And if it’s not that, well, I don’t know what we’re hiding from the world. I’m not one to live life on the edge of being nervous about what others think of me, yet it’s the very trap that I fall into again and again. (And here’s where I’ll interrupt to share that I had to leave my keyboard to take care of my unfortunately runny nose - that would have been miserable to deal with in class). I’d like to convince myself that nobody cares about anyone, but on a small campus, it’s hard to blend in sometimes - I mean, everyone knows everyone, which can be both a good thing on the one hand and a bad thing on the other.
Then again, why do we feel like people care so much about what we wear, how we look, and what we do? I think that’s because we’re all afraid of sticking out like a sore thumb. It’s more convenient, at least for those of us with introverted tendencies, to hide amongst the crowd, even though we are extremely unique people at depth. We tend not to show it and wear it. We’re more okay with the showing part, but the telling part becomes awkward, especially when it comes to the part of us that no one normally sees. Under those circumstances, it’s so much easier just to bury it underneath a rug, especially if we feel that we won’t get any sort of validation from our peers.
Maybe that’s the peak of my mountain of struggles, though. The desire, the want, and maybe even the need, if you will, to be extroverted as an introvert. The feeling of being socially awkward is, quite literally, awful. To a certain extent, there is some guilt and grief that comes along with being this way - with feeling this way. Sometimes, I think that we expect ourselves to be content, but if we were truly content, we wouldn’t ever do anything. We wouldn’t ever change. We wouldn’t ever grow as people. In a way, there is a need for us to be discontent at some point in time for us to ever feel content in any way.
And that’s just how I feel: discontent with being an introvert. Discontent with all of the ways that it seems to cause problems in my life. Discontent with the hesitancy that comes along with being an introverted individual by nature. You see, I crave to be more extroverted. I want to be more outgoing. However, every time I try to be that way, the introverted part of me sets off the alarm, and I slump down into quietness and frustration. I prevent myself from being genuine and unique and, sometimes, just follow the crowd because it’s easier that way.
For this reason, writing has become my escape - my way of sharing my feelings and talking about the things I would never discuss otherwise. It’s writing that often gives me rest and healing amidst pain and despair. With all of these ramblings, it’s not that I want to change myself, it’s that I want to be the entire me that embraces every part instead of hiding some parts of me in the closet. In reality, there’s nothing that I should feel that I have to hide, yet by nature, I just can’t force myself to be the full me. So that’s why I find rest in being able to write because I can force myself to write about what I feel uncomfortable with. It’s how I can feel transparent without feeling vulnerable or exposed.
Maybe this whole thing is vague, though. It’s quite possible; it was meant to be a bit that way when I used ramblings to describe this. Maybe it’s more than that. I’m unsure, but I think that sometimes, it’s okay to be unsure. There were times when I felt that I knew everything, but college has taught me so much about how I know so little, even about myself. I think that is a major human dilemma - just figuring out who we are and what we are meant to be in this world. I can say that I know some of the answers, I just don’t have all of them yet.