I am sick. I hate being sick, partly because I have an ordinary, run-of-the-mill flu, and am soldiering on at work under the protection of OTC medications that stave off the severest of symptoms. Not that I would really wish to be more sick, but if I have to be sick at all, I prefer a really nasty, fast-moving bug that lays me out completely and is done with me in less than 36 hours, sort of like a viral hook-up but without the salacious tale afterwards.
However, being sick, being just well enough to forge through my day and then come home and lay about, has given me some perspective and helped me to appreciate that perhaps being sick is really a blessing in disguise; perhaps being sick, even just a little sick, is nature’s way of telling us to slow the hell down and take it easy once in awhile. When you’re sick, you cannot easily focus on all the minutiae that normally fills your day, and all you care about is that you feel like crap, and you wish to not feel like crap. Being sick forces you to stop and pay attention to self care, which is something that we Americans are notoriously poor at doing.
Having the flu gives you the okay to come home and just be – not do seven other things after work, or exercise, or take a night class, or whatever great plans you had cooking before those symptoms appeared. When you’re sick, just getting through the workday is enough, and you understand that you are enough just as you are. You allow yourself to relax, to really unwind, to get more sleep, and recharge in a way that few people outside the flu aisle of Walgreens ever grant themselves the liberty to do.
My natural impulse is to set this blog aside for another day or so for further editing and to let things simmer, see if I want to add or subtract anything, but my flu is telling me it’s good enough, and I should go to sleep. I’m going to listen to the wisdom of my flu.
However, being sick, being just well enough to forge through my day and then come home and lay about, has given me some perspective and helped me to appreciate that perhaps being sick is really a blessing in disguise; perhaps being sick, even just a little sick, is nature’s way of telling us to slow the hell down and take it easy once in awhile. When you’re sick, you cannot easily focus on all the minutiae that normally fills your day, and all you care about is that you feel like crap, and you wish to not feel like crap. Being sick forces you to stop and pay attention to self care, which is something that we Americans are notoriously poor at doing.
Having the flu gives you the okay to come home and just be – not do seven other things after work, or exercise, or take a night class, or whatever great plans you had cooking before those symptoms appeared. When you’re sick, just getting through the workday is enough, and you understand that you are enough just as you are. You allow yourself to relax, to really unwind, to get more sleep, and recharge in a way that few people outside the flu aisle of Walgreens ever grant themselves the liberty to do.
My natural impulse is to set this blog aside for another day or so for further editing and to let things simmer, see if I want to add or subtract anything, but my flu is telling me it’s good enough, and I should go to sleep. I’m going to listen to the wisdom of my flu.
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