Riding the Rollercoaster

I've been sick lately. I don't know what's up with that, but for a solid month, maybe even a month and a half, I've been unable to eat hardly anything. My stomach is constantly doing flip-flops, I feel nauseous, and the smell of most food is enough to make me sit and push it around my plate rather than consuming it.

This has been great for my appearance. I'm down to 128 pounds. Only eight more to go, and I'll have gotten where I've been trying to get for five years. I think this is the first time I've been under 130 since I was just barely pubescent.

And everywhere I go, people ask me, "Have you lost weight? You look fantastic!"

It's very gratifying to my ego.

On the other hand, none of my clothes fit. The jeans I bought less than six month ago? Falling off. The great taffeta party skirt? Requires a belt. My cincher belt? Slips and slides around. And I don't currently have the funds to replace the entirety of my wardrobe. I did just go to Mexico.

Also, I feel ILL all the time.

Every moment of every day is a little battle not to pass out, vomit or just put my head down and cry because it's exhausting to feel so crappy all the time. My head spins, my stomach dances and still, I have to concentrate on what I'm doing and get it done and smile while I do it, because it's now been so long that I just have to function regardless of how I feel.

I hate being sick. Generally, I take to my bed when I don't feel well, and don't get out until I feel good again.

But, I cannot be an invalid schoolgirl forever, and a month and a half in bed would not only be impractical given my life, I'd also probably have lost my mind from the boredom by now.

Who knows what's wrong? I certainly don't. All those ridiculously expensive tests they ran in the ER 5 months ago didn't tell anyone anything. The only way to find out is to subject myself to another battery of ridiculously expensive tests, and really, the upshot is that they might not tell anyone anything this time, either. Unless I'm actually in the grips of the severe cramps and the nausea and the heart palpitations when I go in, and that's hard to schedule. Even I, as German as I can be, know that much about bodily processes.

And, as always, I must consider the possibility that this is all psychosomatic.

More than most people, my mental and emotional state has effects upon my physical being. This is something I've struggled with for more than half my life: being upset makes me ill. Always has. I learned to control my temper as a child mostly so that I wasn't getting sick everywhere, at the drop of a hat. Crying gives me headaches, anger makes me nauseous, bliss leaves me light-headed and dizzy.

There are indications that perhaps this is nothing more than a response to extreme stress. The whole thing started when I was putting myself under a great deal of pressure for having lost Genevieve's father, and since then, it's flared up from time to time. I can correlate most of the major episodes with events that certainly were not pleasant to deal with.

However, this is has been ongoing and constant for some time now. And while I am more emotional than I was six months ago, that's as likely to be a consequence as a cause. Always feeling like I want to sit down and cry has made me more apt to actually sit down and cry.

And lately, there's certainly been a rollercoaster around. The ups and downs of it are unpredictable and numbing. Small wonder my stomach is doing flip-flops: it's being thrown around like a lacrosse ball, up and down and sideways without rhyme or reason. This is the point where I say to myself, "Get a grip and just get off the damn ride."

But I don't want to. Even if it is throwing me willy-nilly and bruising parts of myself that really can't take anymore abuse, rollercoasters are fun, too. The thrill and the danger and yes, even that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when it drops out are all pleasures of their own, to be savored.

And, I refuse to get off before the ride is over. Even sick, I'm stubborn as a bull.