One of the tiny joys of being sick or crying for hours uncontrollably (the latter of which I experienced not infrequently before starting to take testosterone) is tossing tissues away, not caring about wherever they might land. The simple and melodramatic (if not magickal) act of throwing a snot filled paper to the floor to be dealt with in a nonexistent-to-this-moment “later”, makes feeling lowly very slightly and satisfyingly better… ~Creature

They were on day 4 of feeling awful, and day 3 of bedrest. Needed, yet maddening. Finally the horrible sore throat had subsided, and today was introduction to masses of incoming mucus and a red-ridged nose. Green goo, thick and relentless, seemed the very matter that had filled their brain with fog over the past week. Each productive blow, rocketed into toilet paper, shifted tectonic plates of pressure from within the sinus, giving one second or two of relief, until… drip… drip… drip, the process building towards the next big blow begins again.

Nothing they seemed to eat or drink led to longterm relief, though their farm fresh green beans, still sweet and juicy, seemed to win at clearing things up for a minute. This realization was both cherished as hope in their hopeless week of agony, and tossed aside uncared for in the least. Being sick is a business split between need and nothingness. Discovery and the void. Extracted tolerance endured as long as it must be.

Eating and drinking in general seemed to alleviate some discomfort, and so eating and drinking and sniffling and laptop entertainment and sleeping and nose blowing and tissue tossing became the meter and rhythm of their days. It seemed like valuing anything might count as medicine towards a better tomorrow, perhaps even a less insufferable today—but valuing a thing means being able to appreciate it, and that takes energy. Energy was not available for such things at the moment.

It’s funny how when you’re sick nothing seems real in quite the same way. The world is made of cotton and I-don’t-care. It would be depressing (well, more depressing) except the lack of give-a-shit that seemingly saves the day. There was a familiar texture in there, they noticed. Low grade lacking to give-a-shit feelings weren’t new, and no I’m not referencing the fact that they’d been sick many times before.

That feeling, that low level not caring about anything, even though they did in fact care deeply about many things, is one way survival works for people who are continually repressed or maligned in society. Living with sicko snotrockets building up until they must be dealt with, over and over again, one after another, in the form of othering, abuse, rejection, slander, rudeness, degrading invisibility, dangerous hyper-visibility, constantly being on guard, suffering intentional misgendering or name calling or worse, the demand to either educate or endure bad behavior silently… these are the snot-rockets filling tissue after tissue, cast to the floor daily. Energy was not available for such things continually.

Bigotry, like the cold and flu, is an affliction not meant to be pointed at with blame as the only answer for public redress. Everyone experiences moments of such sickness. Recovery asks that we examine the circumstances which have contaminated our spirit, just as one might do after infection of a physical nature. Quarantine. Eat well, ask advice, rest, and process toward a better tomorrow. Bigotry, like the flu, must work its way out of the body, hopefully contaminating as few people as possible, or else it infects all the world around.

Over time one collects knowledge, teaching which things to do and which things to stay away from in order to stay well or get better quickly. We accept we’ll probably put a foot in our mouths or otherwise find ourselves sick again one day, and we take precautions in order not to. Through active treatment and time one gets over the flu, just as one unlearns oppressive behaviors. As the world evolves and changes, we field new illnesses and ideas of sickness itself. To become hardened or uncaring about how one relates to the world and neighbors is symptomatic of ongoing injury and disease. Whether it be an affliction due to abuse received, or because one desires to hold onto abusive behaviors in effort to double down righteously in ignorance of their condition—we’re all a part of this cycle in our lives. We have choices about what to do in order to heal and engage healthfully.

Fortunately a cold will almost always go away in time. Unfortunately bigoted behavior frequently does not, and those who have suffered extreme levels of abuse may one day find themselves in no physical position to heal from simple things.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

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