The first thing out of my mouth most mornings is usually some sort of multi- syllabic utterance such as marghblamhaba which can be loosely translated into many phrases such as, Oy vay!, Mon Dieu!, Dear Lord!, or What???, depending on your cultural and religious preferences. My thoughts quickly go to the things I have planned for the upcoming day, but first I take a mental inventory of my body and how I’m feeling that day. Joints: check, energy: check, lucidity: check. I then stumble out of bed, tripping over the jeans and physics books I left on the floor the previous night, and go about beginning my day.

Most people age in a predictable, parabolic path. Infancy and a time of high dependency is followed by childhood and an increased amount of independence. Then they strike out on their own with a full array of physical abilities at their disposal, in their attempt to take over the world. After a certain point (the proverbial hill) they find their bodies breaking down and their energy to conquer diminished. As they age, they find themselves increasingly dependent on others, until they end up in the infantile stage in which they started. However, people with chronic illness tend to age sinusoidally; occupying all aspects of the age spectrum at any given point. At one moment, we are the ambitious young adult ready to take on the world. The next, we find ourselves reduced to the child, dependent on his mother to bring him his lunch. The following day we find ourselves occupying the role of the elderly, shuffling our feet as we make our way out to the mailbox. In a way, it can be very frightening. Without a predictable path with which we age, tomorrow is eternally an unknown. While I am excited about my future, it is sometimes unsettling to think about how I’m going to feel ten, twenty, thirty years from now.
To a large extent, I think people try to rationalize their illness to make it seem as normal as possible. We don’t want to see ourselves as unlucky, but rather going through a normal process that everyone has to face. Perhaps it’s a form of denial, but to some extent it’s a reasonable position to take. At some point, everyone’s body will start to rebel and break down and activities that people once did without thinking will challenge their resolve. Those of us with chronic illness are just extremely talented and get to encounter these challenges ahead of the class. Illness has the potential to make us more aware of our differences and so we emphasize our sameness. With few people to look up to who are going through similar experiences, I find myself best able to rationalize how I’m feeling based on what I’ve learned from those older than me. I often find myself explaining a grimace or groan with, “Oh man, I’m getting old.” Add in early bedtimes, my need to plan ahead and lack of spontaneity, and I’m your typical grandma.
And its not untrue: I am, in fact, growing older everyday, but at the same time, I know there’s a lot more going on. I am nineteen, and I want to feel, act, and be nineteen, whatever that means. And so I find myself doing things to prove to myself that I’m still young, still vivacious. I wear the Peter Pan hat I made when I was laid up with a broken leg. I spend my weekends watching Disney classics with my friends (which is actually a popular activity for those students who don’t think exploding their livers constitutes a reasonable recreational activity). I cannot sleep without Booboo, my disheveled teddy bear clutched tightly to my chest. I love to sing, dance, draw, and giggle. I find myself viewing the world with the same excitement I did when I was four, when I would come running across the park screaming, “Look Mom, a PUPPY!” While my body may feel a lot older than my chronological age, keeping my spirit young becomes all the more important. I find myself living out the ages of four and forty simultaneously, in the hope that somehow they’ll average out to make me feel nineteen.
But this position of being many ages at once is not without its problems. From the beginning, we define ourselves by our age and the privileges and responsibility that come with each new year. A young child will proudly announce, “I am seven and 7/8ths,” as he holds up seven fingers with a confused look on his face, trying to figure out how to represent fractions without dislocating his fingers. Likewise, a sixteen year old revels in the new found independence his age has brought, as he takes the car keys and promises to be home by curfew. A large part of who we are is determined by our age and where we lie on life’s large continuum of time. Chronic illness, therefore, can present certain difficulties in determining and maintaining a consistent identity when we find ourselves jumping from twenty to fifty, to ten years old, over a short period of time. It’s becomes difficult to define ourselves when our functional age and actual age are inconsistent and chronology ceases to have meaning. Being the kid gimping to class in a Peter Pan hat clutching an (unopened) chemistry book certainly portrays an inconsistent and confused identity. With our identity constantly in flux, it becomes difficult to answer fundamental questions about who we are. It is difficult to determine what my role is as a daughter, a friend, or a student, when my position is constantly changing, based on how I feel when I wake up in the morning. Being both young and old at once reflects the many dichotomies that those with chronic illness are forced to deal with. We want to be both everything and nothing at all, at the same time. We want our terrible illnesses to go away, but at the same time we don’t want to let go of the hope that we can find meaning in our lives through our struggle and that somehow something good will come of it.
I sigh as I throw dirty clothes around my room. I dive under my bed, looking for any blue t-shirt that doesn’t have an archipelago of marinara sauce down the front. Finally, I find one, upset that I have been unable to clean my room or do laundry for quite some time. I throw on the shirt and head out the door. On the way to breakfast, I meet up with a friend who is looking similarly frazzled on this brisk, early morning. A smile breaks out across my face as I have a sudden realization of just how much of a normal nineteen year old I am. After all, most college dorm rooms are just as messy as mine, and we can’t all just be lazy.
Lisa Friedman © 2007 , butyoudontlooksick.com