Wednesday 19 February 2014

The Drama Queen in Me

So I got sick, and somehow getting sick reveals new and beautiful depths of my personality. For example, I begin to think the entire world revolves around me, and that entire world is somehow fascinated by/affected by me getting sick. In fact, I, the great mocker of drama have transformed into a full blown Drama Queen. Here are some examples of how my life has been going:

Me (this evening on finding that my fever has returned, aloud): Lord Jesus, I just want to be WELL again! I want to run, and dance, and play again!

Because I do a lot of running and playing when I’m well... not. This is after a grand total of having the flu for the past FIVE DAYS and I saw myself as Beth March pining away in her bed, her young life cut short too soon. 

Me (with great glee, to anyone who’ll listen): I have lost ANOTHER kilo! I now weigh a grand total of 46.5 kilos!

Then I run away to calculate how much that is in pounds so that the other half of the world can sympathize with me too. Then I picture myself as a frail, gaunt shadow of a woman, too weak to lift one bony hand to gesture frailly to my faithful nurse that I need another slice of banana cake. 

Me (text to my sister J): Hey, can you buy some banana cake or carrot cake on your way home from work?

Because being underweight is the same thing as having pregnancy cravings, where every family member is eager to feed you up with any random type of food your greedy heart desires. (My sister J actually came home and BAKED me a banana cake!) 

Me on Facebook: I sick and underweight. Please pray for me.

And my pathetic heart got a lot of prayers and sympathetic responses back. 

Me at the dinner table last time (high fever included): I hate life.
My family stares at me.
Me: Everything sucks.
My family: Hmm.
Me: I don’t care about anything anymore. And there are things I SHOULD care about, like praying for _____ and ______ who are struggling so much, and I don’t even remember. (The tears start falling.) By the way, the tears are totally because I’m sick.
My mum: Oh okay (reassured)

Me (checking my temperature every 15 minutes): Oh look, I now have 100.8. I love to quantify how sick I’m feeling. (I actually say that.) 

I do occasionally think about offering up my sickness, and sometimes do it, but mostly I don’t care enough. :-( Maybe sickness ISN’T my path to holiness?

Since I'm an INTJ, I did try to think why I get this way, and here's one possibility- I was one of five growing up, and whenever any of us got sick, that was when we got special attention from my mum, chicken soup, TLC, no school, homework, just storybooks and lots of laad-pyaar (pampering). So maybe that's my trained response. It's nice that I actually have my mum to keep doing this even though I've almost reached the ripe old age of 28.

Also, maybe I just like the attention.

Anyway, apparently getting sick apparently brings out the saint or the sinner in you:

St. Thérèse de Lisieux : “It's true, I suffer a great deal--but do I suffer well? That is the question.”

Sue: I suck at suffering!

The End.

P.S. Perhaps God will choose a different path for me to become holy soon?

(For some reason this post seems to call for a Hyperbole and a Half* picture. (Because my five days of flu are exactly like suffering from depression.* Not.) So here you go.)


* Warning: Some bad language in her comics.

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