It's been another week of medical adventures. A hospital that I had been to two weeks ago refused to give me my file of test results. I discovered that the worst crime a doctor in Japan can commit is to keep a patient lingering in the waiting room. However, once you gain access to the inner sanctum of the consulting room, you will be rushed through within a few minutes so that the next person will not be kept waiting. If this comes at the expense of your diagnosis, shoo! don't complain. Don't ask questions. Take yet another batch of meds we're not sure will work and please stop crying. And "arigatou gozaimasu!"
However, through all the kakness - the diet as resistrictive as Julius Malema's capacity for reasoning, the hospitals as concerned with a patient's care as a sadistic rapist, the highlight of my social life being the anticipation of the latest 30 Rock episode - I can't help being grateful in spite of myself. While I think there is value in the all the New Agey teachings of Love and Gratitude, sometimes Positive Thinking is Delusional Thinking. Sometimes you are in a really kak situation and you need to be realistic about your circumstances in order to get yourself out. So often, it seems that people use the Universe and The Secret as another excuse not to take responsibility for their lives. Putting out positive vibes may very well help you win the lottery, but at some point you're going to have to switch off America's Next Top Model, get off the couch and buy a ticket.
So, in spite of all of the above, I am grateful. The restrictive diet, stomach cramps whenever I eat, the vomiting and the nausea have been the most effective diet stragegy since...well...I don't think I've ever encountered one quite so efficient. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some skinny bitch in need of a reality check. I put on a lot of weight when I first came to Japan, but even with changes to diet, weight training and clocking in ridiculous (or impressive, depending on your perspective) amounts of kilometers on the treadmill, I couldn't get the weight to budge. And, honestly, it's great to feel like I'm back in my own skin again and not like Oprah stuffed in a condom.
Meals are simple. I have always been a bit of a foodie, but being a grown up is exhausting and your best intentions for an elegant dinner can get lost at the bottom of a bag of Doritos. Now, I make some baby food style veggies and beans and mix this paste with soup stock. Pow! Yeah, it might sound yawn inducing, but after weeks of everything hurting, it's great to have something that doesn't.
Pain is a great compass. We often do things that we don't really want to do in the hope that someone will like us, not judge us, maybe take a tumble in the sheets with us. But, when you go through a period of prolonged pain, you only have the energy for those that really count.
I have been wonderfully shocked at the people who have come to my aid. For almost three weeks, I could barely leave my apartment and I have been blessed (ugh, yes, I hate to use that word, but out it has come) with generous individuals who have patiently listened to tear stained hour-long phone call monologues, brought me groceries and the first bunch of flowers I have received since 2006.
Most of all, people have shared their personal struggles with keeping a tenuous hold on their sanity. People that I don't know very well and who, from the outside, look like they've got it all together. Perhaps, for all our displays of coping and manipulating our Facebook profiles to show the world of exes and friends we subtly resent that we are doing so god-fucking-damn well, we are just these broken, fragile things stumbling through the mud and hoping we have enough strength to wipe ourselves down when we stumble.
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