Jealous

June 1, 2017

I feel like I have to work harder at being a human than people with able bodies.

Not in the usual chronic illness ways, but in the fundamental human operational ways. It’s a constant job to be sure I’m doing normal human things well. And sometimes, it drains me. It feels like I have to work twice as hard at being alive than people without chronic illness.

And sometimes, I get jealous of able-bodied people.

One Sunday, I was out with my roommates eating lunch at a hip former-warehouse-turned-multi-ethnic-eating-venue. There are picnic tables everywhere and as we’re sitting on a bench all cool with our sunglasses on, bubble tea for my roommates, and a milkshake for me. We’re people watching and playing the “how successful is that first date going” game.  

Then, I see a girl about my age, weight, and height, leap over a picnic bench to twirl around and skip to take out her trash. Which seems a little excessive for a trashcan ten feet away.

Regardless, I burn with envy.

Not only can I not jump over anything without my balance bringing me to the ground, but I also can’t twirl without my nausea or lightheadedness or blurry vision taking me out, and I definitely can’t skip with my brain surgery coordination, so I watch on as this series of things I cannot do turns into a reminder of my lack of ability.

As quickly as the jealousy appears, it evaporates, and I go back to my chocolate milkshake and try to feel smooth and sophisticated again, but the reminder of my jealousy nags at me.

And later, as I watch people ride the metro without holding onto the rails or quickly leap up the flights of stairs, I feel pangs of envy and a slight wistfulness. I cannot imagine a world in which I no longer have to do normal human activities in either twice as much time or with twice as much effort, or twice as much ingenuity to find an alternative.

I feel jealous of people I will never meet who do not even know what they have, and I wish I was better than that.

I wish that I could tell every able-bodied person, everyone wearing a crown of good health that they are so incredibly fortunate. I wish I could tell them to appreciate their ability and their ease of movement and to know their functionality is a gift that I wish could show up in my stocking on Christmas, but never will. I wish, above all, that able-bodied people could understand or at least fully accept my body’s need to find alternatives or seek additional rest or require more time to complete a normal day’s activities without a side-eye glance or without realizing they have to adjust their expectations for doing life with me.

I wish my health wasn’t an inconvenience to everyday life.

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