I keep seeing a commercial advertising an upcoming episode of a reality TV show. I don’t know what show it is and it really doesn’t matter. The part of the commercial that keeps grabbing my attention is a scene with a young girl who is crying into the camera saying that no one understands how much pain she has been through.
It made me think about how I felt about being in pain in my early twenties and sometimes even now. It sucks to be in pain and feel like it doesn’t matter to anyone. I think when I was young, I just didn’t want to suffer through the pain alone. I acted like a stupid youth a lot back then because I didn’t know how to handle anything that I was going through. I often feel ashamed about it, but today I realize that I was doing the best I could. My mom had brain-washed me and practically treated me like a prisoner. I was out of my cage for the first time and sure I was falling apart, but at least I got through it; most people who have had a complete breakdown.
I have a condition now that exemplifies this problem of pain. For the last fifteen years or so, I have been cold, not just a little cold. I mean I am freezing all the time. It is unusual. I live in Texas where it does get cold, but I don’t go outside without a jacket or a sweater, even in the summer. I don’t wear shorts. I can’t imagine going swimming because it would just be too cold. In that last two years, I started having chills. There are periods of time when my body temperature goes below 96 degrees. I start to get so cold I can’t stand it. I start shaking, feeling tired, and having brain fog as if I am going into the early stages of hypothermia. It’s weird. However, I have tried to learn to live with it and most of the time, I do okay. Yet sometimes, I get depressed. I will go outside and see people walking around in shorts and t-shirts totally oblivious of my predicament of needing to do so much to stay warm constantly because I am so cold all the time. I feel like there’s no a single waking moment that I don’t have the thought about being cold in the back of my mind and I can’t help being upset because I feel like no one understands how difficult it is for me to keep up this constant struggle to stay warm. And for some strange reason, it feels like it would make everything feel better if other people knew how difficult it was for me and how cold I am feeling all the time. That’s how I felt when I was in my twenties. I thought if other people could just know how much I am struggling and how much pain I am in, it would make everything easier. The problem is that it’s magical thinking. The entire population of my city could find out that I am this amazing cold lady who feels freezing cold in the middle of summer, and it still wouldn’t change my condition. I would still be cold and getting chills.
It’s ironic that the people who created Facebook and other social media were in the early twenties. They probably thought and still might think that all the answers to life’s problems can happen by making social connections and sharing “your story” with other people.
I don’t know if I am ever going to be warm again and I really don’t know if anyone else is ever going to give a damn about it or not. It really doesn’t matter. What doesn’t matter is what I do with it. I can either let the cold crush me or I can give the cold to God knowing that I can’t control it. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to live with it and embrace and enjoy life because it truly is a gift from God.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
