Ever since birth, I have been extremely, extremely blessed to be a very healthy person: no long-term illnesses, no debilitating injuries, and even when I get the common cold or a stomachache it goes away pretty quickly, to the extent I fantasize about being like Wolverine from X-Men: a superhuman ability to heal. I wouldn't trade my internal health with anyone else. There are, however, some weaknesses of my body: 1.) my skin, which I've discussed previously, 2.) my eyes are non-symmetrical (one eye is bigger than the other, 3.) I used to get nosebleeds a lot when I was a kid, but in retrospect may have been caused by not eating enough vegetables or balanced diets, and 4.) a big one, I get motion sickness a lot on cars, boats, etc. In fact, my most vivid memory of arriving in America for the first time on 12/13/1991, Friday the 13th, was not my parents greeting me at the airport, was not landing at O'Hare Airport, was not driving back to our shabby apartment in a poor neighborhood in Chicago, but was puking thoroughly on the way back from the airport in my parents' car. That was the beginning of my bouts with motion sickness that's turned into a lifelong crusade. I've felt sick on boats to the point where I avoid getting on any ships or boats smaller than a cruise line due to the rockiness of the boat, I'm OK on planes generally except on pretty turbulent flights, and I especially can't handle being in other people's car on curvy mountain roads while not having consumed enough food.
And that's where I found myself on Monday morning after the Big Bear weekend with my friends, taking the bus back from Big Bear down to Los Angeles to work on President's Day. The road back from Big Bear is scenic with great views of Big Bear Lake and the ski slopes, but it becomes treacherously curvy and windy as to comes down from the San Bernardino mountains. Motion sickness starts for me just as a slight headache, but as I'm thrown around in the back of a vehicle while the vehicle shifts from left to right leaning into curves down the mountain, I feel the headache travel from head to stomach to pretty much the whole body, an out of body experience. I try to close my eyes, but that doesn't stop the sensation of the wild movements from making me want to puke. I berate myself for forgetting that I suffer from this condition and not taking necessary precautions to avoid being in the position that I was in. I most distinctly felt trapped, trapped inside a moving vehicle that was many miles and many curves and twists away from its desired destination with a driver who felt no sympathy for my condition and no gauge of how much motion sickness he was causing, trapped upon a mountain that I needed to descend to where I got to, and trapped in a car with no food to balance out my body chemistry to prevent a severe reaction to the motion sickness. Although, I also wondered if it was better that I didn't have any food to throw up. I couldn't fall asleep and I didn't have any energy to study anything on my phone, so it was also unproductive; just trapped in this motion sickness world that I couldn't escape from, just endure until the wild ride was over and hopefully remind myself (maybe through the blog) never too be in the same situation again. Back on solid ground is where I like to be.
Motion sickness, I bow to your greatness and omnipresence in my life. May we never meet again!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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