How Do You Hide?

I love this time of year, fall has just finished it's pageantry of color and beauty and even the melancholy that comes along with watching nature die is welcome as it makes me feel peaceful and reflective.

And then come Thanksgiving and Christmas, which bring me to the reason for this post:  How do I hide being sick around a lot of people gathered together to celebrate the holidays?

Maybe you're asking yourself - Why hide it?  But I think that most of you won't question it because you know why.  We're proud and stubborn.  We don't want pity.  We want to act and look 'normal'.

I don't want people to notice the dark circles under my eyes so I apply a dab of concealer to camouflage those.  Some blush on my cheeks to bring color to skin that has turned pale.  Mascara to brighten eyes dulled by pain and exhaustion. 

I'm sitting here at my desk, reading what I've written thus far and it strikes me as so plaintive.  A whining tutorial on how to use makeup to turn sick into a happy clown that hides behind the created mask.

I have never wanted to be that person - Poor, pitiful me.  An incessant monologue on having a disease.  But the forums and chronic illness blogs, they are our outlet.  Our place to spill the anger, confusion and sadness so they don't poison us against ever finding hope, happiness and the good days.

It's now days after beginning this post and I return to it too early in the morning but it's silent and I can concentrate on writing.

Back to the subject at hand, how do we hide being sick from extended family & friends?  As mentioned above, we use the magic of makeup - Cover Girl is a fitting name and pun.  We do something with the bedhead mess that is our hair.  And we get the hell out of pajamas and into clothes that we pray won't hurt to wear.

We try to be aware of when we grimace or cringe and stop those reactions to not only our normal pain but the hugs and touches of exuberant, holiday-happy people.  When we need a minute or five to give into the agony or push past exhaustion, we find a  quiet room, usually the bathroom, to be alone and simply breathe.

When sensory stimuli like the noise of too many people packed into a too small space, the smells of food and perfume, blinking Christmas tree lights all become too much, we find the bathroom again and drink in the dark and quiet.  While there, we can reapply lip gloss to add more color to the pallor of our face. When you have a chronic illness or disease, you learn too many ways to hide the ravaging effects of it.

We are hardest on ourselves so we need to realize that being sick doesn't make us less of a person - less needed, less worthwhile, less loveable.  I wrote a blog post months ago about trying not to be our own worst enemy when we're ill.  I believed in it then and I still do and yet, it seems the most instinctive thing to keep all of it some terrible secret.  As if we're guilty of something.  To hide the physical manifestations of our disease so that we can pretend that we're fine.

It is hardest during the holidays.  By the very virtue of what they are and entail, we struggle to keep up.  Keep up with preparations if we even dare host a family event.  If we go to another location to celebrate, we're exhausted by the travel.  We become, quite simply, overwhelmed on every level - physical, mental, emotional.   And inevitably, all of that turns into a flare that we can only conceal from others by escaping the situation entirely.

We go home and climb into bed.  We might cry or we may be too tired to squeeze out the tears so we sleep instead.  Tomorrow is a new day to start over, to eat left over ham and smile over that thoughtful Christmas present from someone who tries to understand - a book, a DVD, warm slippers, brand new, pretty pajamas.

We're a little bit sad but we know we did our best to hide the worst of it.  We joined in and celebrated the holiday the best we could.   We made memories for ourselves and those we love.  In the end, that's all that really matters.  It's worth suffering for.