Sickly

I do feel that if this were the nineteenth century, I would be one of those wispy, bedridden women--that poor dear! Her ailing health has made her such a burden on her mother all these years! Thankfully, I don't live with my mother; but unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of being confined to bed. The point of this, however, is that I'm sick. I get sick more often than most people, it seems. I currently have some type of winter-weather-induced upper-respiratory ailment, what would have been considered "catching a chill" in the olden days. (Serves me right for going out of doors without proper boots!) It's annoying, especially since I have a lot of things going on right now that would be so much easier if I could take a full breath. What's more, is that two weeks ago, on New Years Day, my entire digestive system decided to rebel against me (I don't know what that would have been called in the olden days, they probably didn't speak of such things). And I haven't really kept a diary or anything, but I am pretty sure I haven't gone more than two months in my whole life without having some type of cold, cough, walking pneumonia, chicken pox, scarlet fever (yep, I've had scarlet fever), or other ailment.

Anyhow, I guess what I'm getting at in this post is that I'm really grateful to live in this era. As much fun as it would be to put on pretty dresses and go to balls to meet potential suitors, I would much rather have modern medicine. I can leave my bed and not be some pale shadow of a thing whose world consists of the view from my bedroom window. And as much as I hate coughing, I'm glad that I can cough outside of my house without having people think that I'm going to die*. So thank you, Vitamin C, ibuprofen, pseudoephedrine, acetominophen, dextromethorphan, and zinc. I couldn't have left the house without you....well, I could have, I'd just be a lot more congested.

*Did you ever notice how in tragic operas like La Boheme or La Traviata that coughing is basically the composer's way of saying, "don't get too attached, now, this soprano is going to die." You think, "ah, pretty aria, she'll probably get together with that tenor fellow," and then she starts coughing uncontrollably and you're all, "oh darn, tuberculosis." Of course, tenor fellow is just thinking, "huh, it must be this cold weather that's aggravating her throat so, if we sing together about our love, it'll surely get better." And if I were this soprano, I would think, "Hmm...maybe singing dramatically in the stratosphere isn't necessarily the best thing for my respiratory infection..." I guess that's why it's called opera.