Life is a Roller Coaster

Sometimes (and somehow) your life just gets unexpectedly out of control. It suddenly decides to kick you out and take the rein itself, whether for the better or the worse.

Recently mine has just taken its authority over my well-planned lifestyle. The results were simple; everything was screwed up.

From time to time, I ponder on the seemingly predetermined pattern of life and still marvel at how it works.

One fine day it gets so high that you feel reaching for a star is more than possible, then, unexpectedly and without warning, the sky abruptly comes falling down over you and the earth is torn apart as if to swallow you down its bowels. While in such a never-ending torment, out of chaos comes a promising sunshine that will wash away all the menacing darkness and light up your day once more. And life gets into its normal track and goes on as if nothing had happened before.

Such was my life two weeks ago.

After spending days and nights worrying about the renewal process of my resident's card and putting my future tasks into their priority, I got inevitably stressed without knowing that my physical condition was worsening. I could sleep only 6 hours a night during the whole 2 weeks, which totally drained me out. It was topped off by the great labor of the removal and installment stuff.

Then my poor abused body couldn't stand it anymore and decided to manifest its chemical rebellion. Rashes began to pop up on my ankles and made their way up to my thighs, my arms, my hands, my neck, my ears and finally around my lips!

It was hives, or officially named Urticaria. It is supposed to appear as an allergic reaction to some chemical or biological substances such as pills, food or even drinks. However, in my case, it was probably because of the stress itself.

That was what I was informed of after waiting in an emergency unit for 3 hours. Ironically, the waiting room was called "Box rápido" which was not, in any bloody way, fast at all. Three bloody hours of waiting! With that itchy feeling all over your body! Can you imagine that? That was (and still is) how thing works here in Spain. If you don't drop dead or stop breathing right there at the feet of a doctor, just queue up and wait for your damn turn, as you usually do in the bank!

I had to strictly take anti-histamine pills which caused drowsiness for over two weeks; the greatest of all torments. I could hardly concentrate on anything and spent all day yawning and dozing, be it at work or in metro.

To make matters worse, I had a paid translation to finish in only 3 days, of course, under the effects of the pills. Besides the natural linguistic difficulties of the text itself, my project was hampered by a night-time gran fiesta that an apartment mate of mine threw on Saturday. So I had to put up with the loud music, thunderous laughs and boisterous conversation and resisted all the urge to pull my hair and let out a big scream and jump out of the window.

But precisely that night, I finished that damn traslation. As soon as I lay down, I hardly noticed anything around me and fell asleep so fast like I had never done before.

It was the best sleep I could ever get during that period.

From then on, everything seemed to get back to its normal course. I had renewed my card. The symtoms were gone. I began to take pills less frequently and had more time to finish any pending minor tasks that had been set aside, or even to prepare myself for the upcoming trip to Prague!

That was when I started thinking about how mysterious life can be. It sure is a roller coaster. Some times you reach the peak and stay there for a long long time, the others you go down (or are pushed down) nosedive to the bottomless void. It is always like this; up and down alternately, contrary to my previous pessimistic perception (Yeah, I used to think that these bloody series of unfortunate events would never end. What a shame, wasn't it?).

And so was the enlightening lesson I got.

Until next time, hold on to the optimistic side of yours and never let it go away.