The Judge RANTS!
Date: 28/08/16
On The Wrong Side Of The Fence
In her 1978 essay Illness As Metaphor, Susan Sontag states that each of us holds dual citizenship; one in the Land of the Well, and the other in the Land of the Sick.
I currently feel as if - having entered the latter realm with the intention of it being merely a short visit - I have, as if by an act of fiat by some existential equivalent of Theresa May, had my passport to the former revoked with no effective mechanism of appeal, and am thus stuck in permanent exile on the wrong side of the concrete and razor-wire.
In addition to the frustrations and limitations imposed upon me during the long, long recovery period from my surgery, my sinuses have now started playing up and my blood glucose has once again leapt into the stratosphere for no apparent reason, and is once again resisting all attempts to bring it back down again. This is leaving me not only more sluggish than ever, but making me feel queasy to boot.
There are things which I not so much want to do as need to do - basic household chores - which I am finding very difficult to accomplish; it was only last weekend that I did any cleaning for the first time since coming home in mid-July (the Three Bs - Bath, Basin and Bog: it had to be done; the bath looked like it had been used by hippos). When a number of my physical weaknesses combine and conspire against me like they are at present, keeping any sort of equanimity - let alone optimism - becomes a struggle.
Perhaps I should start trying to tunnel under the border; it should only take me a couple of years...
