Last night was a horrible night. I have never had to throw up in a toilet. It almost sounds comical, but it was a new experience for me. I didn't know it would be painful. I felt nauseous, and a little bird in my head told me that if I wanted to stop shivering, stop the muscle pain that prevented me from sleeping, I had to vomit. I did. I didn't have to, yet, but I did. It's interesting how it's much harder to do something difficult voluntarily than when forced to.
I remember this girl. We were in India. And then we were in a New York hotel room. Both times she was vomiting in the toilet. She spent the night mostly lying next to the toilet, waiting for the next opportunity to vomit. I realized last night that I didn't really appreciate the gravity of vomiting, the pain, the fear.
And the loneliness.
I tried to tell myself that this wasn't actually a big deal. People get food poisoning quite often in their lives, and the bad stuff has to come out one end or the other. My food poisoning hasn't ever needed this end, that was all. No big deal.
But the loneliness was especially acute because it was so new to me. I wasn't sure what caused it. The unknown. I saw the stuff that came out, all red. I imagined I was vomiting blood. I wanted to feel sorry for myself. I heard myself when the regurgitation happened; was it really me? I almost saw myself, with my head over the toilet, making that horrific sound. I can't remember if that girl made that sound. I was worried, felt helpless, but I was there, waiting for whatever she needed. The doctor, bland food, what kind? Just tell me and I will get it. Rehydration fluid.
Here, in this little bathroom of mine, I was alone. My roommate has left. In a way, it was good. I didn't want her to hear my animalistic sound. I didn't want her to feel she needed to do something. I was all right alone. I didn't know what to do; going online to do research was painful as it required the attention of my aching eyes and the movement of my aching body.
Still, there was the loneliness.
As I started cutting the vegetables to make myself a broth, I started crying. I didn't know how I got myself into this mess. I don't mean getting sick. Finding the source of the food poisoning is difficult. I mean, how I got into the mess of being alone. Maybe because I didn't like asking for help from my friends, didn't believe anyone would come. The other day I told one of my closest friends that the trouble with me, one of the problems, at least, is asking for help. I couldn't. I did it passively. I let people know I was sick, and waited for responses. Friends started telling me they could help me. That's what I wanted to hear. That they would help. I wouldn't take up the offer, but I felt a little less lonely knowing that help could come.
But still, last night, I didn't ask for help. In my room where everything was cold, except my feverish body, I had a horrible night. I couldn't sleep. I knew I had to vomit again, but my body was in too much pain, and my mind didn't have the will to get up into the cold and prepare my body for the violence.
I thought about that girl. More precisely, those two occasions. I was there to take care of her. In the same way my Dad had whenever I got sick as a child. Patiently waiting but internally aching, seeing someone you loved suffering. I remembered his face, his sighs, when I got bad stomach aches. Somehow, I always wanted to replay that. I always wanted to love someone, love a woman, in the same tenderness and attentiveness my Dad had tried to love me. But when it was my turn (again) to suffer, as an adult now, I found myself often alone. There wasn't a woman sitting by my side and waiting patiently for me to recover, doing what she felt necessary to mollify my suffering. In the end, the suffering is not that great. Human beings have endured far worse physical pains. The father of one of my friends is dying of cancer, and I can't start to imagine the pain. And yet, he has his family, including a loving daughter, to take care of him. In the infernal of my fever under my huge comforter, I wondered why the room was empty. The greatest suffering isn't the physical pain that twists our nerves, but the feeling of disconnection and abandonment in the time of suffering of any degree.
The tango song isn't about food poisoning, of course. It's, as expected, about love. The name means "Together with my heart", and it's about loneliness, abandonment. The woman has left him, and he could only wish that one day she'd return to be with his heart.
But there are, still, the friends. After a horrific night of little sleep, I decided to take up the offer of help. I asked a friend that I didn't really trust, but I decided that trust had to start somewhere. I couldn't get out and I was feeling increasingly dehydrated. I no longer felt nauseous, but my mouth was dry and my head had a beating drum inside. So I asked him, and he was enthusiastic in helping me get some foods necessary for the recovery. I thought about him a little. I didn't trust him because, for one thing, he was a man, and for another, we've had a history of friction, competing for the same women. But he offered help, twice.
This blog is about my new life. I believed I could do new things, push into new frontiers. Not just in terms of profession, but everything, especially in the realm of my personal life. I don't know if I will still have a job tomorrow since it's really bad to take a sick day off on your third week in a new job. Somehow, I am not as worried as I thought I would. Somehow, after a horrible night of vomiting and fever and muscle pain, after a horrible night, and day, of feeling utterly lonely without anyone in the house to watch over me, I haven't lost my optimism. I don't want to be alone again next time I am sick, next time I am in trouble (like being unemployed!). I think next time I will have friends to connect to, even if they can't help me. Their desire to help, their constantly asking me how I was doing, contributed to the strength I needed to get through last night and this morning.
It's raining outside, after snowing last night. I can't get out. But that friend is coming to give me the food I need, and then later another friend will come with prepared food. Somehow, in my heart that is as strained and tortured as my stomach and head, I wish to have someone here who loves me in the same intensity and closeness my Dad did, or at least, that I did for that girl. I don't know if this is a ridiculous desire, but there's something to be said about having someone close to your heart, "Junto a mi corazón", holding my feverish hands.
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