'I’d gladly give over my vagina to medical science/someone less fortunate if I could stop these women talking about make-up for one solitary minute' - is a thought I had the other day.
The reason for this to pop into my head was due to being trapped in a conversational situation whereby I had to listen to my fellow (wo)men rabbiting on about lipstick and all his pals for a good 2 hours solid. TWO HOURS. It was torture. It was like water-boarding but with make-up. Make-up-boarding. Make-up BORED-ing.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like make-up as much as the next woman, in fact I very much enjoy the ritual of painting my face before a night out – looking glamorous and having a slight out of body (face?) experience when I look in the mirror. I like feeling ‘pretty’ and alluring and all that jazz – but I also have MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT.
It could have been anything really, that tipped me over the edge. Make-up patter was just this particular trigger for me, on this particular day. It could be talking about bus timetables, and how horrendous it is that the number 27 is late AGAIN, or talking about the weather and how unfeasible it is that it’s raining in Scotland, in Summer, AGAIN.
It’s a rule of thumb that making mountains out of molehills suddenly becomes a bug-bear of many people with chronic illness. You suddenly find yourself annoyed at people’s ability to create drama where there is none. You become furious at those around you taking their lives for granted and weeping and wailing because their favourite shade of lipstick is no longer in stock.
It’s not their fault.
It’s not our fault either.
But it’s hard to find a balance between building explosive rage and grinning and bearing it.
Do we tell them we’d happily ram a chloroformed rag in their mouth every time they complain about having to wait for more than 5 minutes in a Post Office queue?
Or do we tolerate their gripes and treat them with the same respect and tolerance as you’d expect them to allow yours?
Maybe you don’t know what I mean. Maybe you are ill too, yet you live on a fluffy cloud of tolerance and eat sunshine and lollipops for breakfast and expel odourless pink gas, well BULLY FOR YOU. You are a Mary Poppins android anti-human and I don’t understand you. In fact I am jealous of you. Maybe I am just the intolerant one, who gets annoyed at people treating me as though I am a sponge ready to mop up their problems and ring them out? I AM willing to do that by the way, because I am a nice person who cares about people. But I just would LOVE if you could choose your battles a little more carefully. Do you really need to burst a blood vessel stressing about which type of rice would go best with your curry? I nearly DIED and I didn’t make a fuss like that.
I suppose without being too dramatic about it, having an illness which takes up so much of your life can alter your view on things. Suddenly minor niggles become just that, and not something to lose control of your facilities about. Suddenly waiting for a bus for 5minutes longer than expected isn’t actually that big a deal. Having parts of your anatomy removed is. It’s all about priorities; and unlike my disease, I like to think mine are in check. Are yours?
