Sick

I am on my third sick day in a row. Friday, then Monday and now Tuesday. I still feel kind of ick, kind of sick, yet I plan to return to work to tomorrow as I am no longer actively coughing yellow goo. I mean, you can't stay home sick forever. There's a point where you have to suck it up and go back to work even though you still don't feel 100%.

Being sick allows me to slow down in a way I never really let myself slow down. It gives me a break from my relentless productivity, my relentless doing. I don't have to go running. I don't have to clean the house. I can take time to just sit in the shower and watch the water droplets merge into each other and flow down the drain. In fact, being sick gives me a break from my very personality. I become subdued. Quiet. Slow. Low.

I miss my usual energetic self, but I also enjoy this new self, this new outlook on life, this new way of being in the world. Being sick. Being, not doing. Being. Being patient with the illness. Waiting. Waiting to get better.

Hopefully I'll appreciate my wellness once I have it again. Oh, how we take things for granted. Then a little virus comes along and makes everything so darned hard. How we long just to feel "normal," just to have the energy and vigor to go about our daily lives. And we vow to never take un-sickness for granted again.

Just as I am vowing now...