I don’t like being a wimp. It offends me, but neither do I
like lying on the sofa dressed in four layers of clothing with a swimming head,
nausea, a cold sweat, extreme weakness, irregular heart beat (I had the
presence of mind to check) and a pain across my chest, which is what happened
last Sunday when I trimmed a different hedge. (I didn’t call an ambulance
because they would probably have taken me to hospital and I wasn’t in the
mood.)
And this isn’t about age. I’m not old enough yet to get a
heart attack just because I make the effort to trim a 150ft hedge. And maybe it
wasn’t a heart attack anyway. The whole thing seems to be about a return of the
old chronic fatigue thing which assailed me between eight and four years ago.
Now, as I understand it, chronic fatigue is not a condition.
It’s a symptom of several possible conditions. So what the hell is wrong me, and
will they ever find out so there’s a possibility that I might get better? My
doctor just thinks I’ve got an aching left leg, and I imagine he’s on holiday
anyway because he doesn’t appear in the appointment listing on the website for
five weeks. So I’ve decided to take the strenuous stuff reasonably easy, which
means also persuading myself not to commit suicide on the perfectly reasonable
grounds that being a wimp isn’t what I want to be.
And now do you understand why I so hate people asking me ‘How
are you, Jeff?’ What am I supposed to do? If I reply ‘I’m fine, thanks. How are
you?’ I would be lying. If I tell the truth and say ‘Well, actually…’ I have to
watch the dullness of boredom appear in their eyes and suffer the sight of
their feet going into spasm because they’re being denied the natural urge to
flee.
Sorry for the whinge. Feel free to flee. And to those who
didn’t make it this far I say: ‘I forgive you.’
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