01.28.2008 - 10:45 a.m.

I can handle pain. Too well, really--like that time we flew to Florida, only my sinuses were full, so my ears never popped. My husband never knew because he had headphones in, and I was breathing quietly and not at all telegraphing the fact that I felt like my eardrums were being impaled on chopsticks. Splintery ones.

I hadn't wanted to freak out the kid in the window seat, who was travelling alone. Also, there was nothing my husband could have done anyway, so why worry him?

I'm a bit too proud of my capacity for stoicism. Really, the one indulgence I make is when I'm sick... because misery is subtly but importantly different than pain, in that there's nothing to focus on and blot out. Everything just pervasively feels awful. So I don't get hung up on pride when I'm sick; I go ahead and let myself look like death warmed over, and I groan with almost every motion. It's calming to me.

I should do it quieter at three in the morning, though. I'd spent all of that night in the bathroom, deciding which end of myself to hang over the toilet; once I was empty, I'd drawn a bath, hoping to help all the muscles in my miserable core to relax again. It only sort of worked; I think I was running a fever, so all the hot water in the world couldn't stop me from wanting to shiver anyway, and then when I went to shift positions, my muscles still ached. Even the ones I hadn't even used.

So I groaned. But I wasn't thinking of how the bathroom would amplify the sound and wake up my husband, who stuck his head in, wondering if we needed to go to the hospital.

"No," I said. "I'm fine." I smiled, too, reassuringly, I hoped.

"You don't sound fine," he pointed out.

"I know, I was just... I didn't think you could hear. I wouldn't have if I thought it would wake you. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry... can I get you anything?" He still looked really worried.

"No, really... I'll be in bed soon," I promised.

The whole exchange left me vaguely ashamed. Of what, I'm not certain; but it was a long time before I could sleep, even aside from my body's discomfort.

-stonebridge

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