listening

It's just me in the flat now and it's probably for the best. Still got no voice, well strictly speaking I can talk but on the evidence of last night where I uttered less than a few sentences and woke up with my throat worse than yesterday morning then it's not a great idea. This makes it annoying for those I'm with-they see that I can sort of talk but it seems like I'm choosing not to and am simply sullen about being ill. This is only partly true (I'm a terrible patient) the real reason is that I am terrified of making my throat worse and prolonging my inability to speak properly; it is the most frustrated I've felt in a long time and I've been living in a foreign country for 3 months! That I have 2 flights in the next 3 days also makes me very nervous. Things are made even worse when I'm trying to communicate to someone with gestures or writing something down; people think I'm being endless or annoying when really I'd like nothing better than to squeak the syllable that would end my arm flailing and the misunderstanding it generates. However, every time I come close to relenting I realise it will only hinder me further in the long run and either continue gesticulating or resign myself to the fact no-one knows what I'm trying to say. Then it looks like I'm an ungrateful bastard who is in a huff, which again is only partly true. People telling me it could be worse and making comparisons to far, far worse illnesses are of course correct but are kind of missing the point, it's not the fact I'm ill that frustrates me as much as the fact I could be ill for longer if I did try and speak. That and the fact that however annoying it is to those that are forced to interpret my drowning man impression into relevant concepts it is infinitely more frustrating trying to make even the simplest contribution to a conversation without almost certain failure. I thought it would get easier with time (I lost my voice a few days ago) and it sort of is, it just means I resign myself to not contributing at all.