I’m enjoying a stolen day. Stolen, because my time shouldn’t be my own today. Its been leased out. It’s regularly leased out. My time belongs to someone else. It sounds odd put that way but it’s true for most of us. My time is evenings and weekends, nothing more apart from maybe a quick half hour for lunch.
But not today. Today I’m at home. There’s nothing wrong with me apart from I needed to steal back a day of my own life. All I’ve done is some washing, a bit of cleaning and a bit of writing but it feels special. It feels so good just to know I’m cheating the system.
Breaking the rules. I even went to my friends house for a brew and a chat. The feelings of guilt that have been drummed into me have raised their ugly heads once or twice but overall the feeling is one of unexaggerated bliss. I’m laughing at them today and it feels good.
Understanding each sex. As a culture I don’t think we do. Some people do and do it very well, others make up for it by wallowing in their antiquated views. I read a debatable article about how females could survive without males if necessary and that the only reason men have survived and evolved is because if we passed on our genes unaided, we would simply end up producing clones of ourselves. If this were to happen, eventually our immune systems would prove little 115
resistance to harmful bacterias as there would be little hope for variation amongst our genes and our descendants would start losing the evolutionary race.
With men around, we give only half our genes, giving our children new combinations, forever changing over generations, giving more resistance as the dna is always changing, not giving the harmful parasites time to find that one key that they can latch onto.
Some species of lizard have adopted a female only clan and it seems to work for them but the hypothesis is that time will be their undoing. Who knows? They might triumph in the end. Maybe humankind will eventually adopt this way of life. What would become of Adam then? I don’t believe that will happen but I reckon it could be a good topic of conversation if well timed. I wouldn’t relish in a female only society. I love men too much. Well, I’m quite picky but the men I love are the ones who might not understand everything there is to know about females but enjoy trying. It works both ways. I wouldn’t class myself as a feminist by any means and there are a lot of things about the male of our species that I can’t fathom.
That’s why it can be such fun. Men and women do think differently, that’s what we’ve evolved to do so that we compliment each other. Originally it was probably only procreation that drove us to become this way but over thousands of years we have adapted and learnt that better communication can lead to healthier relationships and healthier offspring. Even if a women can’t have children, a loving couple will still stay together. This is due to evolution and I think it’s rather pleasant.
Tolerance of pain varies I think between individuals.
It’s one of those things you can’t really measure. I think that I have horrendous period pains. Do I or is my level of tolerance lower than the next persons? If 116
two people cut their finger say, the same size cut, the same amount of bleeding, would they feel exactly the same thing? I don’t know.
Having to go back to the hospital. Now is that better or worse than having to go the first time? Not sure. I seem to be growing quite nonchalant towards it now. I have another problem, or so it seems. Scans are clear which is good, pain is agony, which is bad. We’ll check the tubes this time, maybe there’s some sort of blockage. I know it seems I’ve been writing this for an age but I’m still only twenty-eight. Just. I feel like telling them to take the whole thing out and be done with it but then it’s definite that I’ll never be a mother and I can’t bring myself to do that.
I’ve been walking through the countryside. Out the old back door and into the glorious backdrop. Whilst out I’m beginning to change my mind about the world. I did think that civilization would be much better off if a huge asteroid smashed into the planet and took us all out of the equation. But looking around at the beautiful landscape and realizing what I’m looking at is millions of years of history and evolution I’m discovering that it would a devastating shame if it was all destroyed. The sheep on the top of the hill, the Shetland ponies trotting through the fields, the continual song of birds as they flutter in the trees. Maybe I’m beginning to appreciate what’s around me. Maybe I’m beginning to see that it’s not all hopeless. As long as there are people who remember why they enjoy being alive, maybe there is hope for humankind after all.
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