Wonder Pill for the Wondering Woman
She looked at the little white blob in her hand and felt again the pang of fear.
This was the end of the world as she knew it for the last forty odd years.
They say this little thing will fix it all, will fix her! Will make it all better!
She always felt incomplete, maybe a bit unusual and awkward, but broken? Not so sure about that. Even so, they say she will become better, happier, and that makes her hopeful.
Her life had been so difficult, fighting tooth and nail for every little thing, for stuff that seemed to come so easily to others. Now though, she would become better and that should make things easier.
Who wouldn’t want to be better?
She wanted it badly, she was too tired to fight anymore.
Down goes the pill!
This is the end of the world as I know it!
The effects take effect slowly.
‘They do not work for everyone, so please, do not be disappointed if you do not see a great change.’, the doctor’s words rang in her ears.
Fine, whatever! She had done her bit, took the thing, now it was its turn to do something.
The woman did not have any more time to spend thinking about it, the day’s tasks all sat, nicely aligned, waiting for her to handle them.
While she was preparing breakfast, she became really aware of how many actions were involved in putting eggs and bacon on the table, brewing tea and coffee.
It was all so wondrous.
Operate the cooker, take things out of the cupboard, measure other things, set the table, open the fridge, remember where a million things were, yell at the little ones what they needed for school that day, remind her husband about the dinner date they had with the Joneses.
The woman became aware of all these things, and she wondered at her own ability to handle all of them, and this was just a normal, routine day in her household. There were others when chaos reigned supreme, when the children were deaf to her requests, when the husband was moody and when nothing seemed to work properly.
When she was left alone, she sat down to have her own coffee and wondered if this was the effect of the pills.
She was not sure, but what was certain was that before, she had never thought about all the things she was accomplising. She was just doing them like a machine not giving herself any credit for it. It was just what she was doing, nothing extraordinary about it.
While sitting there at the kitchen table, the woman was surprised to hear the house creak. She hadn’t heard it in years and was convinced their house did not creak. At first she thought that maybe there was someone in the house, but then, she came to understand that, it was just the house settling down after the morning’s running around.
Thinking about it, the woman came to understand that, she had not heard the house before because she was too wrapped up in her own mind. Now her mind seemed to settle down together with the house, and it was all quiet and clear.
This for sure was the pills, as the woman had not experienced this kind of quiet focus for years, if ever to be fair.
The woman just sat there rejoicing in the silence, and then realised that she missed her hectic thoughts, the fullness of her mind. It was just like when the kids were away on a sleep over. She was sure she will enjoy the quiet, but then, not long after they were gone, she missed them, she felt incomplete without their running around and noisy way of being.
The woman felt the same about her busy mind, it was nice to have a break, but she had been herself for so long that, now, she found it difficult to cope, even with a better version of herself.
The pills were an option, but not a requirement, as she was happy with herself in both ways of existing.
The woman felt free, she was happy to know herself as she was and as she could be.