Visitors

I'm a social animal, I like visitors. The right visitors are a welcome break from the 'in bed, in bed, in bed' routine. Sometimes they bring a little present, and one friend walks straight in the door and unpacks the dishwasher without asking. Love that.

But they can be a mixed blessing. Visitors breeze in, unconsciously oozing vitality. In comparison I feel like an unkempt puffy-faced rat. I can smell the vigour of the real world on them. I want to steal some, hide it away and feast on it later. If only it were a transferable treasure.

Much of my time is solitary, and my general head-space is one of acceptance. Acceptance without defeat. But sometimes I have contact with someone healthy and active whom I haven't seen for a while and KABOOM. It's the biggest, fire-crackiest reminder of everything I miss out on and it incinerates the self-preservational house of cards I have built to accommodate my mind. I have to reconstruct it after the visitor leaves. It doesn’t even take a visitor, sometimes just an email with photos of weekend fun, mention of a job, study plans, a picnic, a gig.

I genuinely love to hear about people’s lives. I really do. It's not jealousy. Jealousy implies a resentfulness of others, which I don't have. I don't want anyone else to stop what they're doing, and I actively encourage them to tell me all in great detail.

But I'm not always immune to the sharp reminder of personal loss that can come from hearing of another's activities, witnessing their vibrant glow. Like a paper cut, it can sting surprisingly. When you get sick, you don’t lose your normal life all at once. You lose it every day. There’s a constant bereavement for normality.