Appreciation

You know what is the most rare and precious thing in the world? It's the smile from someone who hardly ever smiles. It's warm and happy and genuine, it's nothing like the polite upturn of the mouth used by everyone else for everything, and it's all the more beautiful because you might never see it again and you're left scrambling, wondering what you did that you might do again, just to see that smile one more time. It's something you want to hug away in your memory forever, because the feeling it inspires is like nothing on earth.

See, this is why the cold, antisocial types are so popular with the lady-folk. Being one of the lady-folk myself, I can sympathise.

I haven't mentioned it here previously, but for the past three weeks I've been sick - first with a terrible sore throat, and subsequently with a persistent cough which has not resolved as of yet. It is primarily the cough which has exiled me, from the lab where I do my research and thus, from all the friends close enough to meet in person. It has been a horrible experience.

I used to think I was antisocial, able to sustain myself on a minimal of human contact. But these weeks have shown otherwise. I need that social contact, not as a momentary pleasure but as a critical requirement for maintaining my mental equilibrium. I need to see people, talk to them, know that they miss me as much as I miss them. It's been a frightening, frightening revelation.

Those throwaway well-wishes, tacked onto the end of the few messages I received while trapped at home - "Hope you're feeling better" - they should not have been like a cooling drink after a long trek through a desert. I should not have been as thirsty as I was. There shouldn't have been a desert.

I am far more human that I thought I was, and it terrifies me.