It got bad here in Xiangyang. As the temperature got colder,
I found myself getting colder too. I got cold physically, and emotionally I
began to feel cold too. I tried my best not to show it, and I think I succeeded
in doing that. By the end, it was all I could do to just keep the smile on my
face.
And being cold inside and out led to more things. The cold
wasn’t just outside, but inside my house too. Every day as soon as I got home
from work, I changed immediately into my tights, sweatpants, long sleeve shirt,
and sweatshirt and jumped under the covers in my bed and stayed there for the
rest of the evening. It became a party of me and my computer. I would often pull
the covers of my comforter over my head and let my body heat form a little
pocket of warm air in my bedroom. When it became too hot and the air was
getting thin, I’d pull up the sheets to let some more air in, but almost
immediately pull them back down again once I got enough air.
I’d become so jaded by living in the cold in Xiangyang, and
I forgot what it was like to feel better than I did. I didn’t know what being
completely content and happy felt like anymore, and I was getting sick. Not “I
have a cold” sick, but I was malnourished and dehydrated. I ate only when I was
hungry because being depressed broke my will to leave the house, and being
cold made me unwilling to drink any liquid because that would just make me more
cold. I didn’t even realize I was getting malnourished and dehydrated because I
was just so cold.
I didn’t realize it at this time. I’ll write again in a
later blog post about how I did realize it.
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