A Sick Man

I am a sick man. Or more specifically I am a plagued man. There is no point in time where I am not plagued and my health and nerves and sanity suffer. I have tried to relocate, meditate, medicate, self medicate and still I am ill. I can’t seem to find anything either over or under the counter, speaking to someone or homeopathic. I fear that I am to be plagued for life.

My illness isn’t unique, but for those of us afflicted, it seems that we suffer alone. Intellectually I know this is wrong, but that doesn’t change the perception. We are too ill to see things any other way. From morning to evening the plague is at its apex and then, as if by act of god, it calms down for the night to rest up and come back again in full force the next day.

Naturally, the plague I’m speaking of is people. I say this generally and without conviction. People needing things and asking questions and trying to connect and with problems to solve and orbiting myopically around their own petty troubles. My immune system doesn’t seem to have a defense for this. People constantly harass, harangue, question, nag, prod and whine to me. They need and want and simply cannot go on. People claw their way into my time (which holds no value to them) and set up like a tapeworm, slowly sucking away until one of us dies.

I’ve looked high and low and reflected and deflected and run away and have yet to find respite let alone a cure. All people don’t fall into this contagion, but certainly most. Especially if given a chance. They slip into my life like a candiru and cause sharp pain and drink my blood. I used to think it was primarily women, but I was wrong. It is most everyone of every gender, race and creed. They claw away with their complaints and opinions; they browbeat and hand-wring and fret and fuss and bloviate.

This plague cannot be cured, I’m convinced. Sad as it is, I believe I will have to run out the clock a sick man who can only look forward to the brief moments when the symptoms are manageable. Typing these words I realize how many might think that this isn’t indeed so much of a problem. Ignore these people and don’t take things personally. Set up boundaries. Ah yes, the simplicity of it all.

What many don’t realize is that it isn’t finding solutions for all these people that kills you. No, there is the irony of the thing. The incessant griping is the end in itself and therefore the virus is perpetual. The plague has no cure because in its very essence it seeks to spread rather than kill. It only lives if the host lives (see tapeworm/candiru analogies above) therefore it does what it can to keep its host alive.

And this is where I find myself. Bags under my eyes, swelling gut and jaundiced. Fingers chewed away to nubs, hair unkempt and nerves raw. My mood is afflicted and my heart palpitates. Sleep eludes me and I live in constant fear and apprehension of them, my plague. I wish it were different for harmony’s sake, I truly do. I wish I could live happily and harmoniously with people and lord knows I have tried. Unfortunately that just isn’t in the nature of a virus. There is no logic. The optimist in me hopes for something else, but my optimism is another disease in itself best saved for a future diatribe.