The Thin Line

Lower Your Tolerances: God Does Not Give You Anything You Cannot Handle

A strange thing happened last week. I caught a cough, cold and fever -- the symptoms of which were sneaking up on me for days -- and then I mysteriously got well the following night.

This sounds like a pretty mundane detail in my life (possibly because life has been pretty uneventful lately) but the last time I became sick was actually a few years ago with flu-like symptoms (high fever, aches and pains, etc.), a bad cold and a really bad cough (the kind that makes you feel you're developing a six-pack along the way, which actually would have been a nice side-effect...). I usually get sick for a full week.

But now that I'm looking back, I haven't really caught any major bug in my past ten years in the US. Last year, I had a false cancer alarm (I changed my main physician since). I've had no major injuries also. Knock on wood.

Last week, I was dismissing the cold symptoms, even as I felt the fever coming in. The day I decided that I was sick and not just having a bad day, I started Googling for swine flu symptoms. A website stated that high fever was sometimes absent -- which alarmed me because my fever was mild or non-existent. The other symptoms that I didn't have were vomiting, loss of appetite and muscle weakness.

So that night, I ruled out vomiting and loss of appetite. Since I didn't exert any substantial physical effort that Wednesday, I propped my Iron Gym at my room's doorway ("turns every door into your own personal gym!" -- I laughed for probably a full minute when I heard that line). Pull-ups are difficult for me  -- I usually start at 8 repetitions and settle for 7 or 6 for the next two sets. So I did just 7, felt normal, stopped obsessing over swine flu symptoms, and went to bed.

This turned out to be a pretty silly test, because the following day, Thursday, I was sore with flu-like aches and pains -- but then I couldn't figure out if my arms and back were sore because of the flu or because I did pull-ups.

The cold, coughing and slight fever went on for during Wednesday, and I avoided interaction with people as much as I could -- warning people who, I had to talk to in person, trying not to hold on to things like elevator walls and cubicle partitions, etc. I busied myself with work and browsing for anything related to Rolleiflexes and twin lens cameras, colognes, etc. (my current obsessions the past few months or so).

Evening was coming and for the first time and I was starting to feel the cold. I looked out of my window down the street and it was sunny, so I turned up the temperature in the room. I concluded my fever actually got worse.

So in the evening when I got off the subway close to home, I was quite a bit weaker and colder but I forced myself to buy orange juice and some bread. I took Theraflu and passed out by 9pm even as my landlord was knocking on my door and ringing my phone to remind me to leave the keys for the superintendent who was going to fix my bathroom faucet the following day.

I had this vision that one of the stuffed animals in my apartment were volunteering to buy more medicine -- nothing unusual -- and then dozed off in sweat pants and a fleece sweater under a comforter.

I woke up an hour earlier because of the discomfort of sweating, cleaned myself up, and went back to bed normally. I was rehearsing in my head what excuse I was going to use to either not come to work or be at work really late.

Then, the following morning, I was almost perfectly well. It must have been the 10 hours of sleep or the Theraflu.

My current theory is that because I've been sick so often from my childhood to my adult years (from minor colds, to delirious flu, bronchitis, etc.) that I slowly developed some capacity to fix myself fairly rapidly (by my standards, not by Wolverine-mutant standards). It seems I'm not gifted with the immunity of some people; I complain fairly often - headaches, fever-like symptoms, weakness and dizziness, etc.

Some of my friends say that I just complain too often about little things, but now I'm thinking I always do tend to catch something. But it only turns out to be a false alarm.

Yes, that's probably it. My body has been coping after all. By age 40, I'll have superhuman healing abilities.

. . .

My last conversation with my cousin Anna -- God rest her soul -- was about sickness and pain. I was wondering how she could take all the pain needed to survive her very aggressive form of cancer. I usually called her for a chat at least during the middle of the week (usually on Fridays during my bus ride home) because she had her chemo on Mondays, and common sense told me that you'll usually feel weak and be unable to interact much till the following day.

So, the day after she died in May, I was dazed by the absurdity of the death. Of course, her death, like a lot of other things, was probably absurd only to me (her mom gave me this really weird look when I expressed that I thought she was going to last a little longer). The truth was that she survived for quite a long time, and that she suffered for so long that it was easy to rationalize her passing as a gift. But my logic was that she still had so much to live for. And how come I was always relatively fit and healthy? In my clouded mind, I thought I didn't actually deserve these extra years on earth.

This thought sometimes turns into something darker: People who pass away suffer no more. We people who are still alive are still doing our time. Death was not really the question I was trying to answer. Pain was.

I came to a conclusion on just one thing: God does not give you anything you cannot handle.

Thus, on the tennis court one spring day, when I was asking God how come I was relatively healthy and fit while "better" people suffered all sorts of ailments and problems, I might as well have a looked up at the sky and the clouds would read "because you're a big sissy and you complain too much".

In an absurd sort of way, it made sense. It doesn't take much to beat me down. Some knee pain and a corneal scratch easily reminds me of how fragile our bodies are. I can raise a huge stink about having a mild fever, make faces while drinking Theraflu, and then inconvenience a lot of people by making a big production out of some mild illness.

This jives well with the theory that God hasn't been kind to me because I've been such a great guy. God has been kind to me possibly because my mom -- who's a much better person -- requests it every morning at church and every night while praying the rosary. In the same vein, God keeps me relatively fit and well -- though scaring me with paper bags scraping an eye and cancer false positives -- because I would be a really big baby to everyone around me otherwise. I can live with that.

Moral of the story: Don't be like the biblical Job. Lower your standards and tolerances and don't be so brave in life. Brilliant.

Ordinary Miracles

I'm still waiting for my old eyesight to come back.

My ophthalmologist checked my right eye three times. The first time, she found a large corneal abrasion. The second time, she told me it wasn't completely healed. But on the third visit, she exclaimed, "Yup! All healed! 20-20."

It's possible that my vision is 20-20. The problem is I used to be able to see much better.

Years ago, one of the eye doctors I visited encouraged me to be a pilot. He gave me this pep talk about God giving people gifts and the best you can do was to use it. He got excited after testing me and started asking "Do you exercise regularly?" "Are you in reasonably good health in general? "Are you interested in joining the air force?"

But here's what happened. I walked out of a store with a paper shopping bag. It was so cold that I hurriedly fished out my ear warmers from my right pocket, and hurriedly tried to put them on. I was numb with cold and was a bit absent-minded that I forgot that I was clutching a shopping bag. And that's how I scratched my right eye.

It was Friday, and I managed to find a doctor during the weekend. I didn't go to work on Monday to Wednesday last week.

It's already well over a week since the accident, and my vision hasn't gone back to normal. So now, I'm considering using my left eye for future photography work if this doesn't get better.

I was wondering about this all week. First, it's one of those things you take for granted: Vision. Your senses. Secondly, just imagine how simple it was that something we take for granted is taken away. A shopping bag.

Everyday that we're alive and well is a small miracle. Being alive is a miracle. I could easily have lost my eye altogether. If it happened while I was in oncoming traffic, I could have died.

People look for miracles when the ordinary things in our lives -- and life itself for that matter -- that we take for granted are miracles by themselves.

Why I'm Still Running

A couple of months ago, I decided:

1. I need to take more pictures again.

2. I need to go back to writing and blogging more.

3. I need some kind of last will and testament.

The short version of the story is that I thought I had cancer. For what seemed like a long time, I had to rethink my plans for the year.

But after visiting my physician's clinic a few times and seeing a couple of specialists in the span of 2-3 months, I found out there was really nothing wrong with me. The irony in this was that I saw a general practitioner for a physical with the specific intention to confirm that I was perfectly healthy -- that I wouldn't kill myself with my pseudo-athletic aspirations. I went through the requisite stages of disbelief, sadness and sometimes anger.

But there were also mornings when I woke up full of energy and a renewed spirit. I wanted to create photos again. And I wanted to write. If I really were dying, I made up my mind to try to be inspiring instead of depressing before I bit the dust.

Of course, when it turned out that the labs that did the screenings screwed up their work, and I was generally more than just a little annoyed aside from relieved. I was back to my old self. Despite the roller coaster experience of passing one screening and going into another, it seemed like the thought of dying early probably made me feel a little more alive.

. ~ . ~ .

If you ask me why I joined the half marathon, it's simply because I decided I can, even if I had to walk parts of it. It was part of my original plan anyway. I was listening to my body for some time, and I was thinking of just doing the 8k at Phily again. I looked at the calendar a few weeks ago and saw that it was exactly 12 weeks before the event. I had time to train, so I registered.

During the jittery months of waiting on tests and screenings, I went about life as normally as I could. I accepted the fact that there would have to be changes. I was already being too careful about my running, and I had doubts about a lot of other things I wanted to do as well. I was still looking into buying an apartment while also trying to get used to the idea that my next step might be to quit my job, move closer to family, and maybe travel with my camera.

But I became more positive. I thought that, whatever it was that was wrong with me, it had to be easily survivable at this day and age. Life would go on, and if it didn't, nobody guaranteed how long you had in life anyway. There was that one moment at Central Park while we were doing our pre-run stretching. I was looking around at the runners who were clearly a lot fitter than me. And I remembered that every time I started running on a bad day, I told myself "This is not my sport. I am not a real runner. I need a bike."

But I also started thinking, "I'm so blest." I can run. I'm not as fit I wanted to be, but I was fit enough. Not only that, I can still enjoy a lot of other activities that were far less masochistic than training runs.

I felt really good about myself. At my level of fitness, the runner's six pack will have to wait, but as far as I knew, I was in perfectly good health. I get out of work and return to the park because I can. And even if it's not up-to-par to some Nike runners' standards, I was running because I can.

Love and Permanence |

....

Thinking of the Reaper on a Sick Day

I didn't go to work today (actually, yesterday). I ran a fever starting late Saturday afternoon. I wasn't feeling well Friday, but I felt revived on Saturday morning even with the little sleep I had, so I went ahead to this  tennis barbecue...

I didn't feel right up to this morning. I woke up because the air conditioning seemed too cold, so I turned it off then went back to sleep. Then I woke up because I was sweating. Beyond that, my head had been throbbing periodically since Saturday.

So I decided not to go to work come Monday morning. And as I was walking to Subway for a quick lunch before I went ahead to my doctor's appointment, I was thinking, what if there was something seriously wrong with me?

These are normally not the thoughts that occur to me while munching on a tuna sandwich of course (I do not recommend the apple pie, by the way). But you know what, if I had to die in a few months, it felt like I had a good life. It was enough.

So I was thinking, if some doctors determined that I had, say, six months to live and that I should get my "affairs in order", what I would do would be to:

1. Write a lot of letters to the people.
2. Finish collecting and processing the portraits I collected, have them printed and framed and leave instructions for delivery to my friends and family.
3. Figure out how to distribute whatever little material wealth I accumulated, who will get the items of sentimental value, etc.

I came to my doctor's appointment late, and was rescheduled to 4:30pm. When I finally received my check-up, the doctor told me:

"Well, you're like the healthiest person I've seen today."

"Oh."

"The only thing we can do is some tests but if I were in your position I wouldn't want it. Do you want to do some tests?"

"No, it's fine. Thanks."

What I felt was just stress and lack of proper sleep.

I wanted to celebrate my 120/70 blood pressure by eating a gyro.

"Who Do You Love?" (And Other Questions)

I was, I think, 25 at the time. I remember because a friend and former co-worker of mine, this thoroughly American guy who looked like a remnant of the 80's punk era, dropped me a note which said something like "Congratulations old man!" My friend himself was 27 at the time. 25, he said, was the last age I'll be excited about when having a birthday.

Anyway, I remember eating at a Mongolian barbecue place somewhere in Castro Street in Mountain View, CA. My friend, about 28 at the time, was relating his laundry list of worries: dating different women and not knowing whom he liked (loved?) more, his job and thinking about getting a new one, and finally, the meaning of life (though not in those exact terms).

I was listening with this probably naive smile on my face. And then, I started coming up with a few thoughts of my own.

Well first, it was about this book I started reading, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. I thought my friend was sort of like the lead character, a womanizer who finally fell in love. It's not that my friend was a womanizer in that sense of course, but I thought he treated his romantic life with the caution of a 9-year old wielding a water gun.

Then I told him this story about my high school senior year retreat. Fr. Dennis Paez had this game that I think we simply called "Who do you love?" It went like this:

1. Everyone except one person in the center (the "it") sat somewhere in a circle of chairs (perfect for our retreat format of course)
   
2. The "it" asks one of the people seated "Do you love me?"
   
3. If the person says "No", the "it" asks "So who do you love?" The person can answer something specific like "The people in white shirts" and everyone in white shirts scamper to switch chairs. THe "it" then has an opportunity to steal a chair.
   
4. If a person answers "Yes", everyone scampers to a new chair.
   
5. If a person answers "No", but then states he loved everyone, everyone scampers to a new chair.

We finished our meal by then, and we shared jokes about the game. For one thing, it was funny to ask "Do you love me?" because all of us in the room were boys. Now if only life were like that, I said. You're asked difficult questions and your reply has no real consequences.

I told my friend half-jokingly that one of these days, he would be asked the question "Who do you love?" (perhaps he'll have to ask the question himself). But it wouldn't be a game.

So then I asked him, if his brother, his parents, or any of his girl friends (girlfriends?) asked him the question "Who do you love?", what would be his answer?

He turned sober and quiet for about a second. Then he replied, "I'll get back to you on that on our next lunch."

. . .

I'm in my early 30's now. If I could go back in time, I'd tell my friend this story about a man who loved and was in-love with more than one woman. His solution? He became a priest. He declared that this was the only way he could love everyone equally. I wouldn't recommend that solution to everyone, of course.

But as a 30-something guy, I have another take on the matter. If you find yourself asking yourself that question, you're in deeper trouble than you think.

It would be a lot easier if we could only answer "with a third option -- maybe" or "it depends" but there are some questions that are either/or propositions.

Still, there are those other questions:

"What do you really want to do with your life?"

"Where do you really want to be?"

"What do you really value?"

I feel that soon, I'll have those answers, or maybe I already have them but haven't taken sufficient action. Hmmm.

But I'll get back to you on that during our next lunch.

"Closing Cycles" by Paolo Coelho

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it maybe!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.

Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the ideal moment. Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person. Nothing is irreplaceable. A habit is not a need . This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.