The Not-So-Glamorous Single Independent Woman

So here’s the mental picture: you are staring at the ceiling while you’re supposed to perform your normal duties and routines as a functioning adult. The only hindrance is that the mind is willing but the body is not.

Not so bad. It happens.

But wait, there is more! You are a single, independent woman who lives halfway across the world from your family. With no one to take care of you, bring you food, check up on you or even notice what’s happening to you. You are literally on your own with no one to look after you during times like these.

Welcome to the dark side of single life.

So there you are writhing in pain, alone in the darkness of that expensive London flat that you pay for. Cringing, tossing, and turning. Unable to sleep, too weak to eat, you check your phone. Who to call? An ambulance? Friends? The Ghost Busters? If only your sense of humour could save you this time but not your family back home. You don’t want them to worry. You only want them to see the happy, free-spirited healthy photos of you exercising and traveling around the world. Not this pathetic little slob on the bed who hasn’t eaten the whole day, who smells like mould and just lies there like a sack of potatoes.

It’s funny how when you are sick, you think about the times when you are fit and healthy, and how you wasted all those opportunities not doing something really important with your life. Say like running for President, finding the cure for cancer, building a rocket ship, or perhaps doing something cool and outrageous like learning how to play an electric guitar.

All these coulda-woulda-shoulda thoughts run in your head, along with your morbid fantasy of the pathophysiology of the chemicals that currently seep into your cells. The million and one possible diagnoses of your current state and what the doctors will most likely tell you. Will you need surgery? How do you self-treat yourself from all these hypochondriac episodes? You ought to know. You do this for a living.

The sad part of it all is that you are a cross between a creative writer with a notoriously wild imagination and a hospital nurse who has seen it all — probably not the best combination at this particular juncture of your existence.

The plan is to head to the kitchen and grab something to at least give you energy. Not happening though. At this point, you are tired and wish that a bunch of huge firefighters would just kick your door open and carry you to safety, like that heroic scene in Rescue 911. In this fantasy, they get to spoon-feed you, put tablets in your mouth, do your laundry, clean your bathtub, and comb your hair. And the world will be a safe and beautiful place once again. Cue in the rainbows and the flying unicorns!

NOT.

Your friends give you a ring, asking if you are okay and offering to come over if push comes to shove. You appreciate their gesture but it is wintertime in the middle of the night. As much as you want them to take care of you, you don’t really want to bother anyone. It’s not like an emergency where you are dying, choking on a piece of olive or something. If ever, this is the slow and painful type of death like being trapped on an island and making friends with a volleyball you conveniently named Wilson. No need to draw too much self-pity and dramatic attention on this one. So you tell your friends what you do best, ‘This is probably nothing. I’m fine.’

Yeah, right.

Because your conscious mind is too busy musing around with nothing close to a productive solution, your inner voice gets fed up and takes over.

Okay, so let’s get on with the real deal. You see, if you don’t move your arse, you will thirst and starve to death, Lady. It hurts to move, but you are all you have. No one is here to do anything for you. Come on now. Chop chop! One muscle at a time.

Think about all those times you pushed yourself to conquer your stats at the gym. How you taught yourself how to speak Spanish at age 18 just because you thought it was cool to do so. Think about how you flew to the big city, jobless and with only 2 thousand pesos to your name, and how you made it to office meetings with company Vice Presidents in less than a year. Think about how you landed yourself in a magazine. Survived a fatal illness. Overcame grief and heartbreaks. Learned a business. Passed all those exams. Saved all those lives. Made it far. Do you think all those experiences did not involve pain? You won those battles and conquered pain. You are the Queen of Pain and you’re not going to let this one get to you.

Okay, so here we go…

Tablets in the second drawer. Slowly walking like a zombie to the kitchen. Turning on tap. Heating stove. Boiling chicken noodle soup. Shoving soup into the mouth. Swallowing tablets jiggling on shaking hands. Drinking water. Good Girl. Getting towels. Turning on hot water. Submerging body in the warm tub. Brushing teeth. Heading back to bed. Then repeat.

No rainbows. No silly unicorns. No Easter Bunnies. No White-and-Shining Armour to the rescue. Just the faculty of the mind. One step at a time, doing the mundane episodes of living, despite excruciating pain. Again, you made that one look easy. Nothing about it is. Food poisoning is as real as a root canal.

In reflection, perhaps I must change my mindset. Instead of thinking about the fun, cool things I could have done. Why don’t I focus on those chapters in which I had faced adversities with all odds against me? Because here’s the truth, beneath the freedom-propelled surface of the single, independent woman’s life are moments exactly like these, braving your fires, not only when you are strong but, most especially, when you are weak.